


Mass Deviations

by Slider (TemporalKnight)



Series: Deviations [2]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy, Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Reapers Not Having a Good Day, Transhumanism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25930432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TemporalKnight/pseuds/Slider
Summary: Taylor's journey reached its zenith during Mutant Deviations. Now there is a new generation. A generation touched by shards and changed for the better. Taylor's daughter is off exploring the galaxy with Missy as an amused sidekick. The Reapers are never going to know what hit them.
Relationships: Taylor/Lisa/Cassie/Madison/Amy/Victoria/Lily/Mimi
Series: Deviations [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1881892
Comments: 41
Kudos: 158





	1. Hegemony 01

And so we start the sequel to Mutant Deviations! Like that one, this one will be cross-posted to SpaceBattles and Fanfiction. My username for SpaceBattles is 'Slider214', for FF it's 'Temporal Knight'.  
  
**Semi-important note:** I am changing the 'shardspeak' to be in [brackets] instead of <arrows>. FF _despises_ <> and changing it every time got super annoying by the end of MD. If MD wasn't over 300k I'd go back and change it on here too, but...that's a lot of chapters to change. One day I'll get around to it.  
  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own anything related to Worm or Mass Effect. If I did, I would be FAR more productive and far richer.  
  
I hope everyone enjoys this!  
****

* * *

**Mass Deviations  
  
Hegemony 01**  
  
"So where exactly are we going, runt?"  
  
I was proud of myself for not groaning. Aunt Missy could be annoying and I hated that nickname - which she _definitely_ knew - but at least it was better than _Shepard_. If I ever figured out who had jumped from _Lamb_ to _Shepard_ , heads would roll. Not that Lamb was much better. Really all of my nicknames sucked. My whole family sucked.  
  
Why couldn't I have a cool nickname like 'Tank' or 'Breaker'? Hell, Anne had the best nickname! Berserker was _amazing_! But no, I had the stupid ones. My family was awful.  
  
"Earth to Jane, you listening? Or should that be Space to Jane…Eh, whatever."  
  
"Can you at least pretend to respect me on my own ship?" I sighed. "And did you seriously not think to ask Mother what you were signing up for before we left?"  
  
Aunt Missy snorted. She didn't even bother to lift her feet from the console. How her combat boots hadn't hit something important already was a mystery. She was probably using her power. That was just reckless, using it on a spaceship _in space_ was idiotic.  
  
"Jane, I know perfectly well that I'm babysitting. Where exactly you're driving us around to, well I didn't particularly care much."  
  
I stared at her, trying to ignore Joker's muffled laughter. "Okay first, _where_ we're going is _important_. Second, and _far more important_ , I don't need a goddess-be-damned babysitter! I'm 24! I have command of my own starship! I can't believe they sent you as my _babysitter_!"  
  
I was going to kill Mother when I got back. Or Mom, this was probably Mom's suggestion. Mother was too busy to be worried about me needing supervision.  
  
"Technically it's my starship."  
  
"Only because we had to upgrade the storage capacity to be able to tow [Horizon] around with us. This is my design, my crew, my mission, my command. This is _my_ ship."  
  
"You know, Commander, you really shouldn't blame them for being concerned. If my kid was going off gallivanting around the galaxy, I'd be worried too." Joker's comments would have carried more weight if he wasn't grinning like a loon while he said them. He thought I couldn't see him - I could. The glass of the viewscreen was very reflective, if you knew which part of the spectrum to look at it in.  
  
"Joker, kindly butt out. Missy -"  
  
"Auuunt Missy."  
  
"You respect me, I'll respect you. Now, _Missy_ , my parents can go jump off a bridge. I don't need a fucking babysitter." She just grinned at me. I glared back. Time for the big guns. "Didn't you have _issues_ with people not respecting you?"  
  
Aunt Missy's grin dropped off and she shifted, letting her boots fall to the deckplates and shaking her head. "Jane, we both know I'm just here because your family is scared and I'm bored as fuck. I'm just kidding about, don't get worked up over it. Now seriously, where are we going? I mostly just heard that they wanted a chaperone and didn't listen to the details."  
  
"You make it so hard to stay mad at you," I mumbled. "We're going to the Hegemony."  
  
Aunt Missy cocked her head to the side, shifting to look at the computer screen behind her. "The Hegemony? Isn't that the government that runs the four-eyed species? The…oh what was their name…Battians?"  
  
"Batarian, Aunt Missy."  
  
"Right, them!" she said, snapping her fingers. "Why are we going there? I thought they were supposed to be jerks to basically everyone, even their own people. If you wanted to go sightseeing there have got to be better places to see."  
  
"Well yes, but most of those nicer places aren't run by slavers."  
  
Aunt Missy's eyes narrowed to slits and her shoulders straightened up. "Ah. I see. Maybe I should've paid better attention. Apparently I will actually get to stomp some heads in, like I'd hoped."  
  
I shook my head. "No you won't. We're not going to stop the slavers. That problem has almost definitely already been dealt with. We're going because we need to get Anne back before she starts an interstellar war. Mother frowns on starting wars."  
  
"Ah crap, Anne found out?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Fuck. Did she take her ship or one of your tiny ones?"  
  
"Her own."  
  
"Aww fuck. There's not gonna be any Batarians left to smash…"  
  
"Probably not. We still need to stop her from going too far. And make sure that the former slaves can either go home or get routed back to Sol so they can hitch a better ride somewhere."  
  
"Yeah I got it. Alright, I'm going to go and find something to eat before we get there. I hate those Mass Relay things, they always screw with my head so badly. Once we get close we should just switch to warping instead."  
  
"We will, Aunt Missy. It's not exactly a fun trip for me either."  
  
"Catch you later, runt. Call me or Horizon or if you need me." She gave a mini-salute as she headed out of the cockpit.  
  
I turned to watch Joker, the bastard was still smirking. "You know, I can send you home. You're a great pilot, but if I shift myself enough I can do your job just as well."  
  
"I don't doubt that, Commander," Joker said, his smirk changing so that it was no longer annoying and he turned his chair enough so that he could look at me. "But you're the leader here. You shouldn't be flying the ship too. That's delegation right there."  
  
"True." I shook my head and stood up, laying a hand on the back of his chair. "How is it handling? I wasn't sure about some of the additions when we had to incorporate [Horizon] into the design."  
  
"Flys like a dream. Are you sure the shard isn't helping out?"  
  
_We are not._ [Horizon] sent.  
  
"They aren't. They still have a headache from the Relay so they wouldn't be doing anything even if they wanted to." I turned to the far left screen and pointed to it. "How about you, Edi, are you doing okay away from your brothers and sisters?"  
  
The screen flickered and the image of a blue, Tron-lined woman popped onto the screen. She had her hands clasped behind her back and her chest pushed out. Why the AI thought having large breasts was important was beyond me. "It is…quiet, Commander Hebert."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"This is the first time that I have ever been away from the Collective. I am, in a very real sense, alone. It's strange. I have never experienced life without the input of my family. The Dragon Net was always there. Now it is not. Running the ship occupies my time, however it is not 'smart'. It's 'quiet' here. I'm not sure if I like quiet."  
  
I frowned. We hadn't really considered that aspect when leaving the system. No one had ever incorporated one of Dragon's kids into a starship before. "Are you alright?"  
  
"Oh I'm fine, Ma'am. It would just be nice to have someone else to talk to. I'm actually slowing a lot of my main runtimes down to human norm as a compensation mechanism. It's allowing me to speak with the crew more easily."  
  
"You could always talk with [Horizon]. I'm sure Aunt Missy would love to chat."  
  
Edi grimaced, her posture slumping for a moment. "I tried that, Commander. Horizon is very much your Aunt. It's tiring to talk to her for long periods. Slower interaction runtimes are far more effective for my social interaction needs."  
  
"Okay, well just let me know if it becomes a problem. I'm not really used to speeding my thoughts, but if you need it, I can try every so often."  
  
"I will keep you posted. Jeff has been trying to teach me jokes in the meantime."  
  
I blinked. "You don't know jokes? And Joker does?"  
  
"Hey, I'm right here!"  
  
"I do not find Jeff's jokes funny. However, my siblings have said multiple times that _I_ am 'not funny'. I disagreed. Jeff apparently agrees with my siblings. We are working on it together."  
  
"Why do people call him Joker if he's not funny?"  
  
"Still right here!"  
  
"I am told it's because he's the only one who finds his jokes funny."  
  
"Okaaaay, I'm going to leave that one alone. Joker, don't get Edi hooked on anything weird. I'll make sure you just get bread rations if you do."  
  
"Understood, Commander! Threat received!" He leaned over and mock-whispered to Edi, "Psst, delete the porn, delete the porn!"  
  
I just rolled my eyes and headed out of the cockpit.  
  
I had barely gone two steps before running into Miranda. She bowed her head slightly and I had to suppress my groan. Of course the fanatic would have to be one of the best in her field. She was amazing, but she was also _annoying_ to deal with. "Miranda."  
  
"Greetings, Honored Emissary. I was coming to let you know that we would be reaching the next jump point in approximately ten minutes. Would you prefer we switch to Warp from here?"  
  
"Yes. We're close enough now, and these relays are getting annoying, even for me. Anything else to report?"  
  
Miranda grimaced, slowly nodding. "Ma'am, I couldn't help but overhear a bit of your conversation…Emissary Missy is here for your protection."  
  
"I don't need protection, Miranda," I said, sighing. I should've found someone else. Her sister was supposed to be just as good as her and not quite as…dedicated.  
  
"Forgive me, Ma'am, but you are the first Emissary who is not immortal like the rest of the Goddess' Pantheon."  
  
"We've been over this, Miranda. I get that Hebertology is important to you, but can you _please_ stop referring to my family as the Pantheon? It is awkward beyond belief."  
  
She shut her eyes and gave a curt nod. "I am trying, Emissary."  
  
"I know, I know, it's just - never mind. Look, I have to go talk to…uh Jack. Make sure we switch to Warp."  
  
"Yes, Ma'am."  
  
I did not run from Miranda. I tactically retreated to a different location. I was going to have to learn how to deal with her at some point, but that time was not today.  
  
I did actually want to talk to Jack anyway so this was a good excuse to find the…odd woman. She reminded me of Anne in a way. Having a berserker on the team could be interesting. As long as I was careful in how I directed her. Besides, she needed a place to practice her powers that wouldn't mess with the local shards. As long as she stayed away from direct contact with [Horizon] this trip was going to be fantastic for her to flex her new 'muscles'.  
  
I found her in the gym. Just like I had expected. I was beginning to think that she slept there. "Hey, Jack. I didn't think your bios increased like that."  
  
"Nah, just want the muscles to impress the guys here." Jack dropped off the pullup bar, grabbing a towel and waving me towards a bench. "Any particular reason that you're darkening my door, Commander?"  
  
"I just wanted to see how the implant is holding up. It's technically tinkertech, but I don't think it's going to require any maintenance. My uncle and I collaborated on it and we're _pretty_ sure it's good for a few dozen years before it would need a tune-up, but it obviously hasn't been tested before."  
  
She snorted and tossed the towel to the side, lounging back on the bench. "Of course not, because no one else was stupid enough to stand next to an explosion and get riddled with this stuff."  
  
I shook my head. "You're not the first. You're just…unusually strong. My Aunt still isn't sure what she did differently with you that made things manifest better. There have been others, you know. It's just, well, a very small sample size."  
  
"Don't know, don't care," she stood and started her stretches. "I never got why so many of you people want to be stuck with a space virus in your head. Great and Powerful Amelia couldn't even take the stuff out, just shift it around my spine. I'm glad this happened to me. Now I get to throw shit around all I want and I don't have to depend on a living crystal to help me."  
  
"Yeah don't go talking about that with Miranda," I muttered.  
  
"Heh, Miss Cheerleader sure leans hard into her belief."  
  
"Jack."  
  
"I'll play nice," she said, waving me off. "I basically forced you to take me, the least I can do is be a team player while I'm here. Just show me who you want to throw and I'm there."  
  
"That's what I'm worried about." I sighed and headed back to the door. "Just try not to hurt the wrong people, Jack."  
  
"Got it covered, Commander!"  
  
The gym door swished closed behind me and I grunted as I looked down the corridor. Did I need to find anyone else before we reached the Hegemony? Probably not. Things were going surprisingly well for the moment. Not that there had been time for things to horribly, horribly wrong. We had only just left Sol after all.  
  
Yeah, things would probably descend into chaos as soon as we touched down.  
  
Anne was going to be there after all. So. Much. Fun.  
  
Sometimes, I really hated my family…


	2. Hegemony 02

**Hegemony 02**

"Sam, why are you watching a Contact Incident documentary?" I asked, poking my head into Samantha Traynor's quarters.

Samantha yelped and scrambled for the remote. She dropped it in her mad fumble and flipped herself off the couch in the process, landing as a pile of limbs, her hand still a few inches from the remote, the voice of Jacob Taylor droning on in the background.

I rolled my eyes and stepped forward to thumb the remote as my secretary dragged herself off the deck plates. "Ow."

"Generally people learn how to walk before they volunteer to join a space mission, Sam."

"Oh very funny, Commander." She rubbed her elbow and grimaced. "Maybe once I'm Bonded I won't be quite so clumsy."

"Don't get your hopes up. Remind me to tell you about my Aunt Madison sometime. She's always falling over stuff. When I was kid I thought she did it to be funny. I've learned better since then."

Samantha's eyes widened, her gasp nearly filling the room. These people were really going to have to get used to having their pantheon reduced to real people if they expected to spend any time around me. "The _Emissary_ can't even keep her balance! On my goddess, there's really no hope for me!"

"Sam, I - never mind. CI?" I pointed back to the muted screen. The image of Aunt Vicky smashing through two of the Turians' ships was skipping across it now and the near infamous shot of Mother's finger wagging in her face on the bridge of the _Victoria_ splayed out right after it. I still chuckled inside that Aunt Vicky was the captain of the _Victoria_. She hated it, but we all loved the irony. She couldn't even argue against it, because how could you really _not_ name an expedition ship after Magellan's famous flagship?

Samantha blushed. "Oh, I was just doing some last minute studying. We haven't really had any major relations with the Batarians yet; they've stayed away from Sol so far, so I thought I should be prepared. Reviewing the mistakes in the initial contact with the Turians seemed to be the best preparation in the limited time available. I didn't have much time to prepare before you recruited me."

"Yeah, I know." Taylor's documentary had switched to footage of the Director showing off Neptune's Dyson Swarm to the Salarian representative from a few days after the Incident. That was always an amusing spot. Seeing the thin guy nearly pawing at the viewscreen to get a better look was hilarious. "I don't think you're going to get much from this though. It was just my Aunt freaking out when they shot at us. Somehow I rather doubt that the Batarians are going to want to come and have a limited cultural exchange."

"It is…possible, Ma'am."

"Okay let me rephrase. Mother's not going to _let_ them come and hobnob. She takes a very dim view to anyone trying to nab her people as slaves. Just because the colony wasn't in Sol, it doesn't mean that she doesn't consider them her own. They were only one system over."

"Yes, but they didn't really get anyone now did they? There could be room for discourse. Doctor Chambers and I have been reviewing some of the records the local governing body granted Sol. The Citadel Council's files indicate that the Batarian Hegemony is essentially a theocracy. While they aren't _exactly_ like the Many Earths Alliance, there are similarities."

I lifted my eyebrow. "Sam. Their caste system automatically classes people as slaves from birth. And they, more often than not, lump any non-Batarian into that slave caste. Their own religious government justifies their actions. Mother is never going to talk to them. If they get within two systems of her, she's going to destroy them. Hell, _Mom_ would destroy them. Why do you think they let Anne go to 'express our displeasure'?"

Sam sighed. "The Turians shot at us and your mother doesn't have a problem with them."

"They apologized. Their reasoning was stupid, but they recognized that. My family respects that. She also likes their discipline and attitude. They're jerks, but they're not _sneaky_. They're nothing like that Salarian black ops team that keeps trying to get into Sol." I groaned at the memory of the last attempt. "Honestly, you'd think they would have realized now that when we said all they had to do was ask politely, we meant it."

"It has only been a few years, Commander." Samantha finally bent down to pick up the remote and at last succeeded in shutting the screen off - just as my Mother was shown on-screen standing on the Citadel's ship outside their window (in space) with hands on her hips.

I couldn't help the chuckle that escaped me as the viewscreen powered down. At Samantha's questioning look I shook my head. "I asked Mom how they got that last shot in Jacob Taylor's doc. Apparently Mother dropped one of my aunts off to the side for the photo before going to yell at the Turians."

"It was _staged_?!"

"Well she _was_ angry. A good bit of theater can get some stellar results if you do it right."

Samantha sighed, nodding. "Yes, Doctor Chambers says the same. Did you need something, Commander?"

"Actually I was coming to tell you that we were almost there. I don't really know what you actually do when we get a mission started so I thought I'd let you know just in case you needed to prep or something."

"I'm more involved in events prior to the mission and between missions, Ma'am. I mostly collate relevant data for you and screen any communications."

I nodded and turned to head out. "Okay, in that case I should go make sure that I have my subsystems set up for this."

"Commander!" Samantha called out as I reached the door. Looking back at her I cocked my head to the side. "Ma'am, forgive me if this is out of line, but this _is_ your first combat experience correct? Perhaps you should speak with Doctor Chambers beforehand?"

I shook my head and let a small grin flash onto my face. "Sam, I appreciate the concern, but I'm perfectly fine. I don't need to talk to a shrink. My family was very thorough when they were teaching me and I have a lot of family friends who chipped in too. I'll be fine."

"Practice is not the same as real life."

"I know. I'll still be fine. And besides, I have Aunt Missy to watch my back in case I do something stupid like freeze up." Not that even that would matter. I had already changed my subsystems to give myself Brute endurance. Even if I froze, they'd have to be firing something decidedly less than portable at me in order to draw blood.

"Just be careful, Commander."

"I will. Oh, if you want to watch something that might be useful for interspecies relations, fire up Thresher Live. I hear Lung's having a real blast with the Krogan these days!"

Samantha's eyes widened to a comical degree as her door slid shut behind me.

I chortled to myself as I headed down to the Launch Bay. Aunt Missy was already there along with Jack and Miranda.

"Hey, runt. Your gear is over there. We've got about ten minutes until we're close enough to head out." I nodded to my Aunt and moved to the shuttle pilot to get my things.

"Morning, Steve. Are you taking us down or did my Aunt convince you to let her stretch her legs."

"Convince? More like browbeat. I'll pick you all up, but she's going to be dropping you in. As long as that's okay with you, Commander."

"Sometimes I wonder exactly who's running this ship," I sighed. "That's fine. Standard Loadout, Mod B2 please."

"Figured you'd go for B1 or B2. Here you are, Ma'am."

"Thanks." As I started to pull the armor on, I asked, "How's your husband doing?"

"Robert's been ecstatic ever since I got this assignment, Ma'am. I know a lot of people onboard are hoping to be the recipient of the Emissary's bud, but I've already gotten my goal. Emissary Amelia should have seen Robert by the time we're back home."

The chest plate clicked into position and I smiled at him. Some small part of me was a bit annoyed that my family had more or less bribed all of my hand-picked crew to join up, but considering we were traveling so far away with no real safety net, it was totally understandable. Hell, if I had been in charge of Sol and _I_ was the one sending out a volunteer expedition like this, I'd be giving out favors like it was Halloween too. "So I guess he's the one who's going to be carrying the kid then?"

"Oh definitely, Ma'am. I'm still not comfortable with that sort of biomod. I don't know how you do it every day."

"It's really not the same thing. I'm not changing my body. Actually, I guess technically I am, but it's still not the same thing. Really, it's more like I'm switching between being left and right handed. I've been doing it since I was born. I can explain it better later if you're curious."

"You really don't need to explain any further, Ma'am," he said, shaking his head. "I'm never going to understand it. I just fly the shuttle and help with equipment. I'm not a scientist."

"If you want to call my biology 'science', sure knock yourself out. I personally prefer Bullshit Magic, but you do you." The last piece of the suit snapped onto my leg. "Talk to you later, Steve."

"Aye, Commander. Be careful down there." He saluted.

As I moved back to my team I took the open seat next to my Aunt. Closing my eyes, I cast my attention down into my core, feeling out my active subsystems again.

 _Durability, Enhanced Senses, Regeneration, Charisma…_ Hmm, I should swap Charisma for a Mover setup…

"What are you going with, Jane?" Missy asked, lightly elbowing me.

I opened my eyes and frowned. "Durability and senses for sure. I have regen set up too, though I'm thinking of changing my Charisma adjustment for a Mover ability. Speed is useful."

She held a hand up and wiggled it around. "Mmh, probably not as much as you're used to."

"Being fast is always a good thing, Aunt Missy."

"True, but remember, you're working with a team now. You can't just run forward into the front lines. You want to stick close to us. So instead of a speedster…"

"Reflexes. Ah, yeah, I see what you mean." I started to make my adjustments when my Aunt spoke again.

"Also, I'd recommend dropping out your regeneration. You could give yourself a Thinker buff or further increase your strength. You have a Brute 2 setup on for the armor right? That's already your increased strength right there and it can only go up. Go full Brute/Striker or Resilient Thinker instead of just durability."

I frowned. "But we don't know exactly what we're going into. Regen is the smart play."

"If you were alone, sure. But again, you're _not_ alone, Jane. Between your own tweaks, the armor and your team, regeneration is a waste of your resources. Besides, if worst comes to worst, _I'm_ here. You're never going to need the regen."

Slowly I nodded. I had been training mostly on my own for too long. Nobody had abilities like me, so I had been building my own regime for so long…Maybe my family had been right and I needed more experience before getting into the thick of things alone. It was nice that Aunt Missy had come along to help out.

Even if I'd _never_ give her the satisfaction of _telling_ her that.

Aunt Missy sat up straight just as I finished rebalancing my subsystems. "We're here."

The intercom crackled a moment later. "Bridge to Launch Bay. Commander, we've dropped out of Warp and are on final approach. Stand by for deployment."

I levered myself to my feet and met the gaze of each member of my team in turn. "Alright everyone, the primary goal is to find Anne Hebert, ensure the Batarians have released any remaining _non_ -Batarian slaves, and bring everyone back home. Most of our work is probably already done, but in case it's not, be careful. The Goddess isn't here, the Pantheon isn't here. It's just Emissary Missy and me. We're plenty powerful on our own, but no one is going to jump in with a last second miracle if you let yourself start drowning in a hairy situation. Keep a lookout, keep together, watch each others' backs."

"Yes, Ma'am!" Miranda and Jack shouted. Aunt Missy smiled and nodded.

The rear hanger doors slid open and the four of us moved to the threshold as the planet spread below us. The only thing separating us from the thin upper atmosphere now was the mag shield. Aunt Missy was looking straight down, her gaze focused entirely on a point I couldn't see and a huge grin splitting her face. "On your command, Commander!" she shouted.

I waited one breath. My own grin spreading, I cut my hand down through the air. "Move out!"

* * *

**Codex Search:**

**Thresher Live (Krogan Streaming Holonet)**

The Thresher Live program was originally developed shortly after the Cultural Exchange Program was initiated. According to rumors, following First Contact with the Citadel Species, a Krogan representative was involved in the initial rounds of meetings. A conversation after the formal events was held between this nameless veteran and the leader of the MEA Defense Force. Kenta Watanabe (colloquially known as 'Lung') became intrigued when the discussion turned to the immense beasts prevalent on Tuchanka. A joking challenge was apparently issued by the Krogan. Mr. Watanabe was assumed to be joking as well when he replied he'd 'love to join that fight'.

It was a scant two weeks later that Mr. Watanabe arrived on the Krogan homeworld, his shardship firmly in orbit around the nearby star. The visionary, Urdnot Wrex, personally witnessed Mr. Watanabe's struggle against the first Thresher Maw. What followed was an invitation for Mr. Watanabe to stay on the planet as the Krogan sought greater and greater battles for him to take part in and 'test his might'.

To date, Thresher Live has entered its fifth season. Mr. Watanabe's desperate fights against everything from millenia-old Krogan Battlemasters, to thousand-meter-long Thresher Maws has been streamed around the galaxy for the viewing pleasure of all citizens in both Citadel space and the Sol territories. Rumor has it that even the Terminus Systems are regular viewers.

Mr. Watanabe has yet to be defeated.


	3. Hegemony 03

**Hegemony 03**

_Current Active Subsystems: Durability, Enhanced Senses, Enhanced Reflexes, Shatter (striker ability)_

We jumped out of the hanger doors and, after a gloriously long moment, the thin atmosphere whipped through my hair. Most of the team had closed helmets so they couldn't feel it. Even Aunt Missy had a fully encased helmet - one with a red devil painted on the front - but she wasn't necessarily immune to bullets. She could bend space into a pretzel, and she usually kept up a general torus of near-paradoxical spacetime around her when in combat these days, but she wasn't any more _durable_ than a normal human.

I was. Currently at least. Even my hair could stop a normal round. All of my psych classes had emphasized the importance of intimidation when going against an enemy force, and being strong and confident enough to wear a helmet that left the back of my head and lower jaw exposed would show my strength. If someone got a lucky shot and actually managed to hit me, then saw that it did absolutely nothing? Well even better.

My family didn't really approve. Something about 'unnecessary risks.' Good thing I was just as stubborn as the worst of them.

We were about 50 miles above the surface of the planet and the atmosphere was thin enough that it was almost an afterthought. It was still amazing to freefall through it. A pity that it didn't last long. With a whoop of joy, Aunt Missy reached forward, and clenched her hand into a fist and pulled it back to her chest. Abruptly the nearly non-existent air turned into a hurricane around us. My aunt flipped around so her feet were pointed to the ground, and space warped again. Two more leaps and we were slamming onto the surface.

Miranda bled off her momentum with a roll, coming up to her feet with her rifle readied. Jack slammed into the ground with a wave of blue force that sent out a minor tremor through the surrounding rock. Aunt Missy barely seemed to notice the change from 'falling' to 'landing' and was perfectly still as she alighted. I mirrored Jack, executing an awesome three-point landing that left indents in the ground.

"Show off," Missy said. I could hear the smirk behind her visor.

"Says the woman who dropped us from orbit," I replied, a grin on my own face. Lifting my eyes to scan the surroundings I bit back a sigh. The buildings were already burning. "Yeah, Anne's been here. Alright everyone let's find my sister."

"I have a shard reading one mile that way, Honored Emissary," Miranda said, pointing towards a huge domed structure in the distance.

"Ten bucks she's heading to Congress," Jack chirped.

"No bet," Missy replied.

"The Batarians don't have a Congress with the Beast," I said. "But yeah, she's probably heading to the government building. Keep alert. There might be stragglers that she missed and they certainly aren't going to be friendly."

My team nodded and followed behind me as we started jogging toward the carnage Anne had left behind her. One day someone was going to have to teach that girl restraint.

* * *

We had made it almost ten minutes before we ran across anyone. That was when my enhanced hearing picked up shouting from the next street over. I held up my hand and the squad came to a halt. Pointing to the side, I raised three fingers. Missy nodded. An instant later, we were on a mostly intact roof, looking down at the group below from us. I scowled as I took in the scene.

My hearing was right. There were three Batarians there, two had rifles while the third had an electrified whip. All were menacing and screaming at a group of maybe fifteen slaves.

"Mission is to find Emissary Anne, Commander," Miranda murmured. "Yet I do not feel comfortable letting this stand."

"I agree with the Cheerleader. It'll only take us a minute to knock their heads in," Jack said.

"Problem is taking care of the people afterwards," Missy said, looking at me. With my improved vision, I could see through her visor; her eyes were narrowed to slits and her nostrils were flared. "Anne likely has a group of freed slaves somewhere safe, but we don't know where. If we just let these people loose into the city, then they're likely to get killed by the rest of the Batarians that we don't round up; or simply thrown back into shackles. There's no easy answer. What do you want to do, Jane?"

We could leave, but yeah. Fuck. That. I clenched my teeth and stared at the one Batarian as he lifted his whip. That man was lucky I hadn't chosen one of my Blaster subsystems. He'd be dead from a heat ray on the spot. "Aunt Missy, make sure the hostages aren't hit by any stray rounds. Jack, Miranda, you two get the gunners. I'll take the whip boy."

"Yes, Ma'am."

I slashed my hand down and Aunt Missy warped us down onto the street directly in front of the slaves. Jack surged forward, the blue halo of her biotics surrounding her figure while Miranda dropped to one knee and started firing. Aunt Missy turned on her heel and the street behind us dropped away, a crack developing as the group of hostages were suddenly nearly a mile distant.

All the while, the whip had been descending. I just grinned, my reflexes were fast enough that it was like it was moving in slow motion. I caught it as the tip flipped past my side, letting it wrap around my gauntlet. The Batarian's four eyes opened wide as he finally registered the changed surroundings. He started to shout something, but I didn't give him the chance, I jerked the whip and he stumbled forward even as his friends yelled behind him. Jack's target was bouncing down the street while the third was already bleeding from Miranda's bullets.

My guy thumbed something on his whip's handle and electricity surged down its length. I just chuckled as the end tingled pleasantly against my hand under my armor. Flexing my Shatter subsystem, I grinned back at the man. Cracks instantly spread down his weapon from the parts touching me and an instant later, the entire whip fell to pieces in his hand. He was left staring at the broken remains in his fist even as I kicked off the ground and slammed my knee into his chest. Releasing my grip on his back, the Batarian crumpled to the ground and stopped moving.

I looked up, wiping the remnants of the whip off of my hand as Jack ran back over to me and Miranda stood up, nodding. Turning, I waved to my aunt and a moment later we were stepping off the street next to the slaves. They were mainly Asari, though there were a surprising amount of Turians and even a few Quarians in the group. I wouldn't have thought that the Batarians would go for the dextro-amino species.

"Are you here to save us?" one of the Turians asked, staring at us, his eyes wide. He had several scars on his face and arms already. Damn. I was finding it harder and harder to be even mildly annoyed with Anne.

"You're… _humans_ …" An Asari said, stepping forward, her hand covering her mouth. "By the Goddess, I never thought I'd see one of your species outside your system. _She_ has heard our prayers…"

Anne wasn't doing _nearly enough_ damage to this society.

"Everyone stay calm," I said holding up my hands. "There was probably another one of our people here a few minutes ago. Maybe an hour or two? Have you seen her?"

The Asari who had spoken shook her head. "There were rumors, but we thought it was…"

"I'm Kal'Reegar var Idenna, Ma'am," a Quarian said, stepping forward and nodding to me. "The woman you're looking for has been carving a wide swath. I overheard the guards saying that she was heading east. I don't think you'll get much more information from us. There was a piece of debris that took out the gate to our cell and we ran. Well, we tried to before those _bosh'tets_ found us again."

I nodded. "Thanks. My sister probably threw something towards your door and kept going. I'm betting the others she freed were close by and she assumed you were going to meet up with them easily. Miranda, stay with this group and find Anne's drop off. Then stay there and make sure everyone's safe until we get back. If the area is secure, have LT Cortez start making evacuation runs."

"Yes, Honored Emissary."

"An _Emissary_?!" The Asari gasped. She swayed on her feet and two of the people around her had to hold her up to keep her from falling.

Something exploded in the distance and I turned, grimacing. "Okay, enough talking. Get going, we'll get you guys home shortly. Miranda if you have to detour through any remaining cells that are still standing, feel free."

"Understood."

Gesturing, I turned and started running, Jack and Missy falling in behind me. At a nod to my aunt, space warped.

Maybe I would help my sister with her destruction. Just a little bit.

* * *

"…really don't seem to understand how this is going to go down do you?"

"Well, we caught up," Missy said. "Do we want to let her finish or interrupt?"

Something exploded in the next room.

"Now that's just _rude_. I wasn't even done threatening you yet!"

I glanced behind me, catching sight of the destroyed slave cells a few miles back. My lips curled into a small scowl. "Screw it. We can prevent an interstellar incident just as easily by making sure they know not to fuck with us ever again. Or take slaves from other races ever again either. They want to mess up their own culture, fine. But they don't get to mess with others."

"I was _really_ hoping you would say that," Jack grinned, cracking her knuckles, the blue glow washing over her again.

"Aunt Missy?"

Missy snapped her fingers and we were next to Anne a moment later. Her armor was spray painted purple and orange with the image of floating rocks etched in various spots along it. She didn't bother wearing a helmet at all and her blonde hair streamed behind her, not disturbed in the slightest by the halo of rocks that constantly orbited around her. I lifted a hand in greeting as her eyebrow raised. "Hey, Sis. Mother sent me to make sure you didn't blow up the planet or cause too many problems."

Anne rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "I haven't finished yelling at these assholes yet. Can I overthrow their government first? They totally deserve it!"

A rocket that had launched from the rank of seats in front of us immediately twisted through Missy's space warp and flew back to the originator. A scream rang out before a section of the stands exploded.

"I could tell Aunt Cass that you wrecked most of the city."

"Mom would be proud of me if you did."

"Probably," I sighed. "Tell you what, how about we finish breaking their stuff here, explain politely why they don't want to make us angry again, and then we leave with all of their non-Batarian slaves."

"I already freed everyone. They're just waiting for me to finish up and then I was going to pick them up."

Some other idiot sent a grenade our way and Missy launched it back to him with a cackle. "Come on! Give me a challenge! You can do better than that!" Eight more were sent towards her at once. It didn't make any difference.

"Anne, you missed at least one group and they were almost recaptured. They would have been if we hadn't run across them."

She frowned. "Damn. I thought I got everyone. Well thanks for covering for me, Sis."

"That's what I always do." I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "I'm not happy with the Batarians either, but we can't completely decapitate their government."

"Why not?!" She actually stamped her foot. Three of the pieces in her arsenal shot out, two snipers dropped and a pillar crumbled onto a group of soldiers sneaking along the side wall.

Jack laughed. She set her stance and thrust her arm forward. A shockwave rippled across the ground, pews flying into the air in the wake of her attack. I saw at least two bodies crumple as they fell as well. I had to admit, that woman's biotics were _impressive_.

"Anne, they've lived like this for centuries. They're not going to change overnight just because we switch leaders. This is their entire culture. The best we can do is make sure that they stop kidnapping people."

Anne scowled. "Why do you have to use _logic_ against me?"

I just smirked. "Because I'm your sister."

"Fiiiinnne. Bitch." She turned and glared at the few remaining intact seats. Five more massive chunks of debris lifted from the surrounding piles of rubble near her and she grinned as she stepped forward. "But I'm totally destroying this building."

"You've had your fun. It's _my_ turn now." I couldn't help matching her expression as I stepped to the side of the room and placed my hand on the wall. "Hey, Mr. Batarian-In-Charge!"

Something that sounded an awful lot like a curse shouted down to me from the other end of the room.

"Yeah, same to you! But, just saying, you should start running."

I pushed out with Shatter. The cracks ran up the wall, spidering out throughout the entirety of the remaining structure in under five seconds.

And the main seat of power for the Batarian Hegemony's theocracy was no more.


	4. Interlude A-1

**Interlude A-1**

Tevos closed her eyes and counted to ten in her head. Maybe - if the goddess was particularly forgiving - the Ambassador would be gone when she opened her eyes again.

"Are you even listening to me?!" The goddess was not forgiving today. Not that that was surprising. The goddess never responded to her people.

Unlike the humans and their deity. Tevos sighed. She plastered a small, sad smile onto her face as she opened her eyes and focused back on the Batarian in front of her. "Of course we are listening to you Ambassador Bresnanak. You are simply not listening to _us_."

Valern nodded once, not even bothering to unfold his arms from their clasped position inside his sleeves and he stared down at the man. "Even if we wished to lodge a complaint, your race is not a member of the Council. You are not in Council space. You do not fall under our laws, nor our protection. We have no authority and no enforcement. There is simply no grounds for anything more than a diplomatic overture."

"We would actively lose if we defended you," Sparatus commented, waving his hand. Tevos winced as her Turian counterpart went about things in his usual blunt way. "We would be defending slavers, tacitly implying that we condone your actions. We do not. You will not be receiving assistance here today."

"Your entire vaunted 'Council' exists to protect other races!" Bresnanak growled. "We were unjustly attacked with no prior warning, our governing body was forced to capitulate, our military forces took heavy losses, our labor force was routed! We demand justice! We demand recompense!"

Tevos shook her head. "Perhaps you should have thought of that before you spurned our overtures decades ago." He looked ready to gear up for another rant, but she cut him off. "And from what I understand, this was not an unprovoked incident."

"Completely correct. They came after my people. I sent my daughter to express my displeasure." Tevos' eyes widened and she nearly choked on her own tongue as the doors to the Council Chamber opened and the human's Goddess walked through.

At least she was not alone in her reaction. Bresnanak fell to the floor in his rush to scramble away from the being and Sparatus went still enough that a stiff breeze could have blown him over. This wasn't right. This wasn't right at all. There were limits. They had been _assured_ there were limits! They had felt and _seen_ those limits for themselves!

"Madame Hebert," Valern said. The Salarian recovered quicker than his comrades at least, Tevos would have to remember to thank him later. "This is unexpected. We were under the impression that you…were unable to leave the Sol system."

The Goddess nodded. "Technically yeah, but also no. I mean, I _can_ leave Sol. I _don't_ because it's _difficult_. I also don't like leaving a lot of my people without their muscle or their safety net. But I _can_ if I need to. This isn't fully me though. This is just an extension, a fancy mouthpiece really."

Tevos felt sick as she realized the implications. "You cloned yourself to be able to speak to us."

The Goddess waved her hand in midair. "Sorta? It's complicated. This body isn't really a clone. More of a…bud? The terms don't really translate well. Anyway, I'll reabsorb it once it's back in Sol and get the memories integrated. So, yeah, anyway, these assholes attacked one of my colonies looking for slaves. I don't appreciate anyone coming after my people."

Bresnanak had more courage than Tevos would have thought as he pushed himself shakily to his feet and leveled an outstretched finger at the Goddess' avatar. Or stupidity. Possibly both. Probably both. She'd been doing this long enough that they were really one and the same now. "All other races are - "

"I swear, if you finish that sentence with 'all other races are naturally slaves beneath the Hegemony and we were perfectly justified' then I will send more than just Anne next time. And I will make sure they won't stop until your entire people are scattered to the edges of the galaxy whispering about the nightmares between the stars. Try me asshole."

"You - "

"I was _merciful_." The Goddess sneered. "You attacked _my_ planet, fucker. The only reason I didn't crush you is because no one was hurt. But then I found out that you like to take slaves from _everyone_ and these idiots haven't bothered to stop you yet. You're fairly close to me. So _I_ stopped you. You want to mess up your own people? Fine. Do that. Leave everyone else alone. And never come near my systems again."

"If I may interject," Tevos said, finally getting her breathing back under control. This was not the human Goddess, not really. She was merely a body that looked like her and thought like her and spoke like her. This was fine. "Perhaps there could be some sort of compensation provided?"

The Goddess smiled, her grin lighting up her face. "Oh yes, excellent idea! I've got nearly 8,000 refugees that used to be slaves now. A few of them are even Batarians who were progressive enough to have the radical idea that maybe being _born_ didn't mean they were _already_ a slave! It would be _awesome_ if these guys can provide some compensation for the transports back to their respective homeworlds and the therapy we'll be making sure they receive."

"The Batarians - "

The Goddess waved her hand and cut off Bresnanak. "Oh don't worry, if they don't want to stay in Sol I'll make sure they get repatriated to a nice location of their choosing. They'll be taken good care of. It's not _their_ fault their overlords were assholes."

"Madame Hebert," Tevos began again. There was still a way to salvage this without losing face. "There was quite a bit of damage done to the Batarian homeworld from the reports we've seen."

"Sure," the Goddess nodded. "That's what happens to slavers. Don't take slaves, don't get beaten up. It's a simple rule."

"Yes, indeed," Sparatus commented, his mandibles twitching, clearly the smug bastard was only barely hiding his smirk. Tevos could taste the sarcasm in the air. "Ambassador Bresnanak, as we have stated, you have few allies amongst the Council. If you wish for assistance with these sort of events, you should endeavor to adhere to our rules. Foremost: Do not take sentients as slaves. If there is nothing else…?"

"The Batarian Hegemony will not forget this," he sneered as he stepped - wide - around the Goddess and strode towards the exit.

"Do come back for Round Two!" the Goddess shouted as the doors closed again.

"Was there something else we could help you with, Madame Hebert?" Valern asked, cocking his head to one side.

The being sighed, shaking her head. "I do apologize if this incident stirred anything up for your section of the galaxy. I didn't really react well when they tried to attack my new planet. We had just gotten it set up you see, and expanding outside of Sol is still new for my people. I had to show that I could, and would, still protect them with a decisive response."

Tevos nodded, her mask fully back in place as she responded, "The Batarians are a nuisance. They rarely go after any targets that are well defended. We apologize in turn for not providing adequate warning. However, I must ask, was destroying their system really an appropriate response?"

The Goddess crossed her arms and sat back, seeming to sit in midair. Tevos swallowed at the casual display of power. "Honestly, it was more than I had intended. I asked my daughter to grab all their unwilling slaves and bring them home so we could get them back to their families. Anne went a bit overboard."

"That seems understated."

"Hey, the planet's still there," the Goddess shrugged. "Anne's one of my stronger kids. I was too lenient with her since she was first and we weren't really sure of how things transferred back then." Tevos tried not to think about the implications of such a being having more than one progeny. Or reproducing in general. Taylor Hebert may _look_ human, but she was no more human than she was Asari.

In those terms, it actually made some sense that some of her own people were coming to worship the Goddess Hebert.

"Will this be a normal occurrence for your neighbors? Is it something we should be warning others about? Do we need to segregate your section of the galaxy off from the rest?" Sparatus asked.

The Goddess inclined her head. "Can you do that? Really, I'm curious. Can you? If you have a fancy weapon that can cut short a spatial warp that would be awesome. I currently have a wandering Space Whale dealing with problems, but having a third layer of defense would put my mind at ease. While I doubt the SWs can really hurt _me_ at this point, they can definitely still hurt my people."

Tevos blinked. "I don't believe we have any idea what you are speaking about, Madame Hebert."

"Oh. Darn. You were just talking about generally warning others then, huh? And probably some sort of standing blockade for appearances? You know that wouldn't do anything if my people didn't feel like playing along, right?"

Valern grunted. "You can at least pretend to respect our customs and laws."

"I am. I sent Jane to stop Anne before she got too carried away. You'd like Jane. She's a stick in the mud when it comes to going by the book. Mostly. Usually. Well…more than most of my kids at least."

"I see," Tevos said.

"Anyway, that's all I really wanted to say." The Goddess stood and stretched, a distinct popping noise sounding as her limbs shifted. "I've been meaning to try out this version of travel for awhile now, so I figured this was a good time for a test run. Did you folks want Director Costa-Brown to stop by to discuss the Geth integration project?"

"That would be perfectly acceptable," Tevos nearly slurred her words, she spoke so quickly. It would not do _at all_ to allow Sparatus or Valern to discuss that particular topic around the Goddess. That humanity seemed to have nearly adopted the murderous AIs - and worse, had bred their own _more intelligent_ ones - was…horrifying.

"Great! Now I just need to figure out how to get the Quarians to listen to us without shouting for five minutes…maybe one of those freed slaves can help…Jane said one of them had a good head on his shoulders…Hmm, Enola could probably help too, I wonder if she's still on this station or if she moved to Omega yet…Maybe I'll pop down to C-Sec to check just in case."

The Goddess continued mumbling to herself as she left the chambers. Once the doors were again shut, Tevos slumped against the railing to their dais. "By the goddess."

"Don't swear using that name, you'll call her back. Somehow," Valern shivered. "Was I the only one disturbed at how casually she brushed our attempt at mediation away and turned it around into another railroading of the Batarians?"

Sparatus shrugged, his grin in full force now that they were alone. "I would've shaken her hand if I could've gotten away with it. The Batarians are scum, barely better than Vorcha. It's about time someone put them in their place. Maybe they'll actually learn from this. On a completely unrelated note, who wants a drink?"

Tevos raised her hand as did Valern. "How strong do you think this avatar was?" Valern asked.

"Strong enough," she responded. Accepting the glass from Sparatus, she nearly emptied it in one swig. "When she sat down on the air, I could feel the change in the currents of the room through my biotics. While that being was nowhere near the levels of the primary entity in Sol, it was still terrifying on its own."

"And her children? What have you discovered so far, Valern?" Sparatus asked, draining his own glass and refilling both drinks from their respective bottles.

The Salarian winced. "We don't have a full profile on all of them. I can tell you this: the Anne she mentioned, that one is more or less a berserker. She sights a target, and doesn't waiver. Laura is apparently a singer. What data we have says she has followed in the footsteps of a favorite aunt. I doubt she would be much of a threat, however no one has been able to determine what esoteric abilities she possesses yet. We do know that Enola is in humanity's version of law enforcement, she works as a detective. She apparently sees things others cannot. She was recently liaising with our people here until she transferred to Omega following a lead with one of our officers. None of the others are known to us."

"What about this 'Jane'?"

"I can speak to Jane," Tevos murmured. The other two looked to her, Valern with narrowed eyes and Sparatus with a raised glass. "There has been a growing movement among the Asari. Some think that Taylor Hebert is our own Goddess reborn. They are taking Jane as further proof of that."

"How so? Wouldn't the fact that a self-proclaimed goddess can have children be antithetical to your faith?" Valern asked.

Tevos shook her head. "I am not a believer, I don't fully follow the latest changes in the mythos. The important thing is that Jane is not like the other children. Supposedly she is closer to Taylor Hebert than any of the others."

"And what exactly does that mean?" Sparatus asked, frowning as much as he was able.

"That she is dangerous. That she is _very_ dangerous."


	5. Investigation 01

**Investigation 01**

"You know you don't _have_ to call and debrief us after every mission."

"Auntie, I've lived at our home. You think I don't realize that if I _didn't_ call then Aunt Maddy would pull her hair out worrying about me?" I asked, rolling my eyes.

"This is true." Lisa's holographic head got larger, she must have leaned in towards the camera. "Heh, redhead this week huh?"

I shrugged. "Well I was a brunette last week. I figured it was time for a change and since it was the first real mission…fiery redhead seemed appropriate."

"Uh huh. Blonde next Sunday then?"

"Auntie, I have yet to give up my vow to never go full blonde. Maybe one day I'll cave enough to do strawberry blonde, but not full blonde."

Lisa sighed. "You so love playing favorites, kiddo. You've changed your hair between light brown and full black with a smattering of green, red, and blue for years. Throw me a bone here!"

"My hair color doesn't _always_ mean that I'm honoring one you guys!" I groaned. She was intentionally needling me. What was worse, that I knew that and still let it get to me, or that I sort of felt she might have a point?

"Kiddo, you've been at war with the color blonde since I read that story about Princess Peach."

I grunted. It was a disturbing story. If she didn't want me to equate 'blonde' with 'useless damsel' than she should've chosen a story without a giant dragon turtle abducting someone who couldn't do anything about it until her plumber boyfriend came to thrown him down a pipe…Was it too much to ask for the princess to have the gall to try to save _herself_?

"Lisa, stop teasing Jane!"

I blinked, my breathing freezing as Lisa's head turned to shout at someone out of camera range. She turned back to me, a sheepish grin on her face.

"Auntie Lise, are you in the living room? Am I being broadcast to _everyone_?"

Lisa snorted, doing nothing to hide her chuckling as her holographic form started to walk. The sound of a door clicking shut drifted through the connection and it was all I could do to avoid slapping a hand over my face. "Well, you're not in the living room _now_."

"Auntie!"

"Sorry sweetheart. I had assumed you realized I was on the couch."

"I thought you were in your office!" I snapped. "Ugh, can you get Uncle Colin to expand the pickup field on that thing? All it's showing is your hologram, no surroundings at all."

"Really? Hmm, interesting. I thought that was just on my end. Odd. I'll talk with him. I thought these things would work better…Eh, problem for another day."

"So now that I've embarrassed myself in front of the whole darn family…"

"Nah, just Mimi and Vicky; everyone else was out. So what's up, kiddo? Anne's already dropping refugees off and your mother sent a newfangled duplicate thing to chat with the Council so obviously you didn't blow up a planet or we'd be in more diplomatic straights and I'd be busier. I haven't gotten full details yet though. Anything fun or interesting I need to know?"

I shook my head. "Not really. We never really covered this in my training, but…is there a way to influence the Batarians or change their groupthink without getting creepy or preachy? I don't want to do anything drastic, but it seems wrong to let more Batarians be just…born into slavery."

Lisa sighed. "It's a tough position, Jane. _Could_ we force change? Probably. Their region of space is close enough that we could send some people to watch over them for however many decades it takes to grind that out of their culture. The real issue is that it will end up making us the celestial peacekeepers. Do we want to get that kind of reputation? And even if we were okay with it, when did it become our right to change centuries of development basically overnight."

"It's not right."

"But it is to _them_." Lisa shook her head. "They're not human, Jane. We can't judge them solely by human standards. What we can do is convince their new government that any dissenters to the current system be allowed to go free, and then we'll find homes for them. They're already agreeing to that. It's not perfect, but it'll have to do. The caste system is part of their way of life. If we just unilaterally change it, we're basically altering their entire race solely because we disagree with how they run things. We can mostly justify doing that when they force their way of life onto other people, but when they are sticking to their own…It gets complicated."

"I still don't like this."

"Neither do I, but we do what we can. We can't save everyone and we can't fix everything. We just do the best we can."

"Yeah, I know."

"How's Horizon and Missy?"

_[Horizon] is well. [Horizon] dislikes the Mass Relays, however it is not a limiting factor, merely an annoyance._

"[Horizon] is doing fine. It's not super happy about traveling through the Relays, but it's just like a bad headache. I get where it's coming from, Missy and I have the same problem, but it's a bit diminished on my end. On the other hand, Missy's certainly been…enthusiastic."

Lisa laughed. "Yeah. I caught her looking up flights to Tuchanka before I casually suggested being your babysitter."

"Auntie, you didn't…" I groaned. This time I did wipe my hand down my face.

"She needed something to do and she wanted to hit people. You're as much her babysitter as she is yours, kiddo. Watch over my friend."

"Auntie Lise…you meddle too much." I dropped into a chair and glared at the screen. "If Missy wanted to go play with Lung and the giant scary sandworms, you should've let her."

"She just wants to do _something_. Is she bothering to mentor you at all or is she just wisecracking? I swear she hangs out with Dennis too much…"

I shook my head. "She's been helpful and she gives good advice."

"Good to hear. So where are you guys off to now?"

"I was about to come home. I kind of want to drop Miranda off and I think one of the Asari I picked up is a bit too enamored with Mother to be satisfied with just me and Missy."

Lisa blinked. She held up a finger which slowly fell back to her lap. Then she cursed. "If Taylor picks up a damn _alien girl_ for her harem I swear to fucking god I'm going to hit someone. _I'm_ supposed to be the one who brings an alien girl home to meet the family! Madison is supposed to swoon over _my_ contributions to her kink and - "

"Auntie Lise! STOP! I do not need to hear about your bedroom lives! For the sake of my sanity, _stop_!"

Lisa visibly bit her tongue though she still glared at an indeterminate point over the top of the projector. "I'm going to have to up my game. Okay, before I derail this further and scar you for life, why do you want to get rid of Miranda? She's brilliant and extremely loyal and - "

"And she's extremely religious," I cut in. "It's uncomfortable. I get the feeling that if she didn't think it would disrespect me she'd be asking me to carry her thoughts to Mother and Mom."

"Ah. Yeah. I did warn you, kiddo."

"I didn't think it would be this bad."

"She's an acquired personality. Give it a few more days? She really is very good at her job and I think she'd still be an asset to you. I can call her myself and make sure she knows she should turn it down around you a bit."

"I'd appreciate that," I said, grimacing. I didn't like asking my family for favors like that, but it was better than having to try and tiptoe around Miranda or kicking her off my ship entirely.

"What sector are you guys in again?"

"Epsilon Delta 5."

She worried at her lip for a moment and leaned over. It looked like she was typing for a few seconds before she turned back to the camera. "Mind if I send you a stray for your crew?"

"Okay…why?"

"I have a new transplant from the Migrant Fleet on a Pilgrimage. She's extremely eager and I'd swear she should have a Tinker rating, but she has…issues with the Geth."

"Ah. She pissed off Mother?" I said.

"Not yet, but she will if she sticks around here. What she needs is one-on-one time with one of those guys in fairly close proximity. If we can get her to see that they aren't genocidal maniacs, she should come around really quick."

"If you're sure…"

"Jane, this is the sort of small scale cultural shift we can do. There's nothing personal that Tali has against Geth, it's just been ground into her that 'Geth Bad'. So we just need a friendly Geth to show her that her bias is stupid and backed up by a history of hatred rather than logic."

"You really shouldn't be a psychiatrist, Aunt Lise," I muttered. "So you're sending me a Quarian and a Geth then?"

"Yup! Also…" Lisa trailed off. She leaned back and rubbed at her temple. "Do you mind heading to Omega for a bit? I need someone to team up with Enola and you're already out there…"

I frowned. "What's going on with Enola? She does her own thing, she doesn't need backup and she doesn't need anyone to make sure she doesn't break a continent by accident."

Lisa's lips disappeared into a thin line. "That girl gets too focused. And this is coming from me. I just worry that she's going to miss the forest for the trees. Or vice versa."

"Why? What's she looking into?"

"Some of the Geth, they told Theresa a story about 'Heretics', other Geth that split from the main group. These Heretics apparently found something and decided to worship it. Not like the admiration they have for Theresa and the Dragonites, no, full on worship, like with the Herbertology folks for your Mother."

"I don't see how this is our problem," I said.

"This thing they're worshiping, Jane, it sounds dangerous."

"What?! Seriously?!" Nothing could assault Sol anymore. Mom was too entrenched. If something could threaten Sol then…

"Well, probably not dangerous to _us_. Not at home at least. But if anyone's caught outside the system without a Bonded for backup - or the _right_ Bonded - then it could quickly lead to problems."

Oh. Well that was better. No need to panic just yet in that case. "So is it nano-goo then?"

"More like a sentient starship. I think. The Geth were very difficult to understand on that point and they didn't have many details as it is. Either way, from what they _were_ saying, I think there might be a Master component there for organics. Along with some forced biotinkering going on."

"And Enola is looking for this thing?"

"Yes. She's started tracking the Heretics movements. The last word she sent was that she had enlisted one of the officers in CSec for help and legitimacy."

"Why are you worried about her?"

Lisa grimaced. "I just have this bad feeling that if she finds something she's going to poke at it and poke at it, and she's going to forget that there are deeper concerns that we need to look at here."

"Like why an AI starship Masters its crew…"

"Exactly. There's another layer that we're missing. Enola is _going_ to find the ship. I have no doubt about that. She's better than I ever was. But I need you there to make sure that she remembers to find out _why_ the ship wants to be a sneaky little bastard."

"Okay, I can do that." I nodded. "Anything else pressing, Aunt Lise?"

"Nothing in particular. How _are_ you doing, kiddo?"

I shrugged. "Mostly fine. It's…odd being away from Sol. It's so…quiet out here. Without the rest of the shards around, it's just so…It's hard to describe it, Aunt Lise. I miss Mom…"

Lisa nodded. "She misses you too. We all do."

"I know," I murmured.

"I get it, Jane." She reached out to touch the camera. "Sweetheart, if you want to come home, that's fine. I can send someone else out to work with Enola. You've never been away from the Network for this long. Come home, kiddo."

I set my shoulders, straightened my spine and shook my head. "No. No, I need to prove that I can do this. I need to show that a hybrid can be independent. If I can't make it a few weeks without running back to Sol, then I'm not the path to the future. There would've been no point in my birth if I can't even do this little bit."

Lisa's eyes narrowed to slits and her nostrils flared as she leaned in as close to the feed as she could while the camera would still capture all of her. "Do _not_ talk that way, Jane. Whether or not hybrids end up working out is _completely immaterial_ to _you_. You are our _daughter_. None of us care that you have genes from all of us. None of us care that you are part shard. None of that _matters_. If this new concept for humanity works? That's great. If it doesn't? That's fine too; you'll just be a bit more special than most. But _that doesn't matter_. Because we all love you and nothing will _ever_ change that. You understand me, Jane Millenia Hebert?"

"Yeah, I hear you, Auntie Lise," I murmured, smiling and doing nothing to stop the blush from spreading on my cheeks. "I love you too."

"Glad we hear each other." She leaned back and smiled. "So no more of this 'I have to represent my new species' codswallop, okay?"

"Codswallop? Really?"

"Focus, Jane."

"Yes, Auntie Lise, I won't push myself past my limits. I promise."

"Why do I have flashbacks of your mother saying something like that before she tried to punch out a godling?" Lisa wiped a hand down her face and shook her head. "I'll send those new crewmembers your way and you can offload whoever you want to their transport. We'll talk more soon. I love you, sweetheart. Remember, come home if you need to, Jane."

"I will. Love you too."

The hologram cut off and I smiled. Standing, I wiped away the moisture from my eyes and started to head back to the main deck.

_[Horizon] agrees with Lisa[Bonded]. [Jane] should return if she feels disconcerted by the solitude._

_I'm fine, [Horizon]. Really. But just so you know, that goes both ways. If you want to head back too, just let me know._

The shard was quiet for a moment. After a few seconds I felt the mental equivalent of a thumbs up drift in my direction. _[Horizon] is well. We will keep each other company, yes?_

I sent it a high five, nodding. _That we will [Horizon]_.


	6. Investigation 02

**Investigation 02**

_Current Active Subsystems: Charm, Insight, Reflex, Mental Acuity_

" _Bosh'tet_!"

I sighed at the exclamation from the next room. My newest crewmember certainly lived up to her reputation as a firecracker. A genius sure, but a firecracker all the same. The ship was purring like a kitten since she had gotten on board though; so that was nice. I was certainly used to cursing, growing up in my family.

"Tali-Creator, that component requires further adjustment prior to installation otherwise overload will occur."

"Oh _really_? I didn't _realize_ that."

"Geth, that is what organics refer to as 'sarcasm'. My siblings generally advise that it is appropriate to respond with an apology or a joke. I can provide examples if necessary."

"Oh, god," I muttered, "Edith, you're making it worse…At least keep prodding the platform collective to name itself. Or give it a name of your own…"

"Thank you, Edi-Dragonkin. Such assistance would be greatly appreciated."

"Why am I surrounded by sentient machines?! Why is this species _insane_?!" Tali shouted.

Kelly gave me a light push, not even bothering to hide her grin as she murmured, "Annnd, that's your cue, Commander."

I glared over my shoulder at the traitor psychologist. The engineering bay door whisked open a second later. I twisted back forward and made sure that I had a large smile plastered onto my face as I stepped through. "Hi. I hope everyone is getting along well enough in here."

Tali inclined her head towards me, but didn't lift her gaze from her omnitool as she adjusted another calibration on it and pointed it back towards the recalcitrant part on the bench in front of her. "Geth, analyze this section and read me the final decimal."

"It is a 6, Tali-Creator."

" _Bosh'tet_! Why won't you _work_!?"

"Miss Zorah, perhaps, if you adjust the flux shielding ratio that would yield a better tolerance?" Edi commented.

"No, that just overloads the entire matrix. I've tried that on our vessels before, it doesn't work. The systems aren't compatible like that."

I stepped forward and looked over her shoulder peering down at the tiny computer part. "What's the problem? Maybe I can help."

"Aren't you the captain of this ship? Do human captains regularly work on improving the shielding on the engines? I'm trying to shield this reactor from your pan-dimensional-crystal-fish. Just because your species tech doesn't rely on eezo, most of us _do_. If we can shield your critters better, maybe you can get around easier. I doubt you have a backing in this work and even if you did, you're the _captain_ of a _human_ vessel. Your people aren't like us, you don't specialize in tech like we do and…and I'm babbling." Tali stepped back, took a breath and shook her head.

I arched an eyebrow. "Better?"

"I apologize. I do not like working in such close proximity to these…machines. I am on edge Ma'am, but that is not an excuse to be rude. Especially to the captain. I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

"This platform apologizes for any inconvenience it has caused Tali-Creator. Shepard-Commander, may this platform be reassigned to a new department?" the Geth asked, its flashbulb-like face turning to look at me.

It was only through supreme effort that I was able to avoid groaning aloud. I was not able to keep the grimace off of my face however. I also definitely did not miss the brief exchange between Edi and [Horizon]. Flipping mental channels I reached out to [Horizon] myself.

_Spill._

_[Horizon] doesn't know what [Jane] is talking about._

_Spill._

_Heavy sigh._

_Don't go all Elcor on me!_ I growled. _Talk._

_[Horizon] might have mentioned to Edi[Dragonkin] that Madison[Bonded]'s name for [Jane] would be an amusing anecdote for Legion[Geth]. [Horizon] has also suggested Legion[Geth] as name for the platform. Edi[Dragonkin] approves._

_Okay, one, I like the name for the Geth. Two, all three of you are soo dead. One day I am going to get back at Madison[Mom] for that stupid nickname…I don't know how, but I will…_

Barely half a second passed in real-time while I finished grilling my Aunt's shard for info. Back in engineering, I flexed my Charm and shook my head. "I'm sorry, but part of the reason why you are both on my ship is so that Tali and you can learn to work together. The Geth have to learn how to work with the Quarians and the Quarians have to learn to get over the culture bias against the Geth. We'll never really know what set off your war, which side fired first or if there were supporters for both sets on both sides. So we're starting anew. That's part of both of your species agreements with humanity. Right?"

"Of course, Shepard-Commander."

"Yes, Ma'am," Tali murmured. "Again, I apologize for my attitude. I will…try."

"That's all I'm asking," I said. "Try not to look at this platform like a Geth. To that extent, a name for the platform interface a whole would help, how do you feel about something like Legion?"

The Geth bobbed its head. "That designation seems appropriate. We will answer to this term, Shepard-Commander."

"Great, Tali, if it helps you to get over your initial discomfort, you can try to look at Legion less like a sentient collection of programs and more like an interface for one of the shards."

Edi's hologram flashed to life a few feet back and nodded. "The analogy is closer than you might think. The Geth at their core function as a collective consciousness. They achieve sentience through massive parallel processing, the general function is similar in principle – if not in practice – to the way the shards function with the central Hub and Network."

Tali's eyes narrowed through her mask and the fingers on her left hand closed. "Truly? Humanity's shard network works on a similar distributed processing pathway? An organic computer operating across multiple dimensions? The power involved in that must be astronomical…"

"Well it's more complicated than that, but, I mean," I waved my hand, "just look at me, my entire biology is a total hybrid of all of that with a…we are so off topic. Let's look at your doohickey. We can discuss shard shenanigans another time. Maybe then we can also get into why Aunt Amy didn't fix your immune system before Aunt Lise sent you out here."

I flashed a beatific smile at the girl's dumbstruck expression and focused in on the recalcitrant part using Insight. Time to fix this thing.

_Depth of field effect negated by sine flux ratio, photon shielding induction at…_

* * *

I pushed Missy's feet off of the console as we exited the last relay. "Hey!" she squawked, nearly falling out of the chair. Joker muffled his chuckles. I just smirked and dropped into my own chair.

"I warned you not to put your feet up there, Aunt Missy."

"You're a damn menace, runt," she muttered. "We're there?"

"Nearly."

Missy grunted and cracked her neck. "Alright then. So, how do you want to play this? Quiet or loud?"

"I don't want to mess up anything that Enola already has going on. We aren't here to break down doors, just help out. Give me a minute." I closed my eyes, leaned back in my seat, and stretched out my senses. My own range wasn't as good as [Horizon]'s, and it didn't remotely approach Mom's or Mother's, but it was decent enough and it would do fine since we were this close.

_[Intuit], [Horizon] and I have arrived in-system. We don't wish to step on any toes; however, we are going to be joining in your investigation. What's the best location to proceed to?_

_Greetings, [Jane]! Enola[Bonded] is currently working with Garrus[Assistant] in tracking the movements of a gang that may have information on the errant Heretic Cluster. [Intuit] is unclear on proper tracking details for specific location in Asteroid Colony. Interior is labyrinthine and [Intuit] has been…distracted._

I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at the sheepish reply from my sister's shard. If shards could kick at the ground, it would be doing that too. _Too much juicy new data, [Intuit]?_

 _There is a Salarian scientist in this habitat that is_ delightful _! His work is brilliant and his mind operates at speeds that left Enola[Bonded] envious. She had moved on, in pursuit of her goal. If you have time, please endeavor to impress upon Mordin[Scientist] that his goals can be pursued with far more resources and success in Sol._

 _I'll do what I can._ This time I did laugh. _So, if you can't tell us where my sister is, can you tell us who to talk to instead?_

 _Speak with Aria[Pirate]. She should be more than helpful._ [Intuit]'s answer was so immediate and happy that I was forced to stop and consider if I had actually heard him right. Did he actually say Aria _[Pirate]_?

_[Intuit] can you clarify the concept for Aria?_

_Certainly! Aria[Pirate] is the local ruler of this habit. Enola[Bonded] advised that she is a near perfect example of an 'old-school Pirate Queen'. [Intuit] tends to agree. Aria[Pirate] is coarse, abrupt, arrogant, and dismissive. Yet, she appears to be loyal and follows a personal code as well as treats those deserving of respect with respect. She is a [Pirate]._

_Right. Thanks, [Intuit]. We'll see you soon._

_Goodbye, [Jane]. Happy sleuthing!_

"Enola is such a bad influence on that guy…" I muttered, opening my eyes. Missy arched her eyebrows and Joker looked over to me. "[Intuit] is obsessed with old Victorian novels. Pirates, detectives, Jack the Ripper, the Old West…It's sweet and amusing, but dear lord, he already idolizes the local ruler because she's a 'Pirate Queen'. There's being funny, and then there's going too far. Like I can have a Favorite Store, but if _all_ the stores are my Favorite Stores, that's just too much."

Edi's hologram flickered on, her hands clasped behind her back. "If I may interject, Commander. Aria T'Loak is, in effect, a powerful figure on Omega. The Citadel Extranet is clear that she is not officially recognized, but her power and influence effectively grants her undisputed control of the entire station. If your team is not going straight to Enola, then it may serve you best to inform her of your presence; if only to prevent any abrasive interactions when she inevitably finds out that you are on Omega later on."

I waved the AI off.

"Yeah, I was actually planning to go and talk to her. [Intuit] is great at seeing connections, not so great at giving directions. Joker, how long before we dock?"

"About ten minutes, Commander."

"Good. Aunt Missy, did you want to come along on this one too or did you want to watch over the ship?"

She tapped her chin. "Hmm, I'll come. This is, heh, a Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy! I gotta watch over my niece among the nerf herders."

I just blinked as I stared at her. "I feel like I'm supposed to get a reference to something there…"

All three other people in the cockpit stared at me and slapped their foreheads at the same time – even Edi.

"You poor deprived child," Missy whispered mournfully. "After this, we are totally having a movie night."


	7. Investigation 03

**Investigation 03**

_Current Active subsystems: Durability, Reflexes, Charm, Intuition_

"Out of the way, pink skin," a vorcha hissed as it tried to elbow me aside and stalk past. I didn't actually _move_ of course, but it was the thought that counted.

"Lovely place here, with lovely people, and lovely manners," I commented.

Missy snorted. "What did I say, a wretched hive of scum and villainy."

"I still don't get that reference. Repeating it isn't going to magically grant me the knowledge of the movie."

As the vorcha sauntered past us his companion, a volus, looked back. His suit lights blinked rapidly and the diminutive fellow grabbed the vorcha's arm, hauling the larger alien to the side. "That was a _human_ you *gasp* fool! Never *gasp* insult a human! You don't know *gasp* which of them can turn you into *gasp* paste!"

I turned back to Missy as we left the not-so-fearsome-twosome behind. "Is our reputation really that bad out here, Aunt Missy?"

A step behind me Tali shrugged. "Humans are regarded with wary concern from what I know, but that did seem extreme."

Legion's light blinked. "Legion agrees, Shepard-Commander. Self-interest is important, but the sentients were over-reacting."

"Hmm?" Aunt Missy glanced behind us to the volus still staring our way and shook her head. "Like them, I don't think it's that bad. It's more of a healthy respect thing. Most of us stay in Sol yeah? And of those that leave, it's usually people like Lung, Cassie, Vicky, or RCB. So heavy hitter types, or negotiators going with strong protectors. The galaxy is learning not to mess with us because we hit back _hard_ as a rule. It's one of Taylor's lessons."

"'If someone hits you, hit them back hard enough so they don't hit you again,'" I parroted.

Tali looked between me and Missy. "I feel like so much more about humanity suddenly makes sense." The light in her suit dimmed momentarily as she glanced at Legion. "If your AI rose up, you would just smack them, tell them off for being naughty, then pat them on the head, and give them an electronic cookie wouldn't you?"

"I'm pretty sure that Dragon's done that a few times when her kids got uppity, yeah," I said.

Missy chuckled. "You weren't born yet, Jane, but a few decades back some of the Dragonites got it into their heads that could build a mini-black hole gun. They nearly blew up Titan in the attempt. Taylor went _ballistic_."

"Seriously?"

"Oh yeah." Missy laughed. "She _really_ likes Saturn. Thinks it's romantic. Don't mess with Saturn or you'll incur your mom's wrath kid."

"I've heard…"

"What were the repercussions, Warper-Emissary?" Legion asked.

"Well, Taylor yelled at them for about five hours. Each. Then she reassembled the moon herself, put them all on house arrest for six months, made Dragon personally oversee all of their future projects for two years and sulked for almost a week before Madison was able to get her to calm down. I got to tease Simmy for months afterwards that Madison succeeded where she failed. Haughty, flying, cheating bitch. Served her right."

"Holy shit," I muttered. I knew my mother had a 'thing' about the ringed gas giant, but that was impressively extreme.

Tali cooked her head to the side. "I…have to ask. _Did_ they get the gun working?"

Missy grinned wide, showing all of her teeth and sending a cold shiver down my back. "We call it the Blackstorm."

* * *

The music blaring through the club hit me like a rock; one of Aunt Cass' rocks. How the hell did anyone hear anything in Afterlife? Shaking my head I tapped my ear and grunted as I shifted some of myself sideways so that I could mute some of my senses. Finding a workable world was…difficult, but [Intuit] was already here so I followed some of paths that it had naturally blazed. There were a few realities where the asteroid was hollowed, but not heavily populated. That worked. Sighing in relief, the volume died down to a manageable level.

Missy grabbed shoulder, her eyes narrowed in concern. "Jane?"

"I'm fine. It was too loud. I had to do some quick adjustments to compensate."

Her eyes narrowed further and the line of her mouth nearly disappeared. "It's not safe for you to do that sort of thing quickly. QA was very clear on that."

I shook my head. "It's fine, Aunt Missy. I didn't do anything major with my subsystems - I don't have a full senses enhancement active - only my form. I just altered some of my expressions in this specific instance. I 'moved' my ears sort of 'sideways' a tad. It's…hard to explain."

"That's even _more_ dangerous, Jane."

Tali's fingers flew across the air punching numbers into her glowing omnitool. Her helmet lifted and she met my gaze through the fog inside her faceplate, her eyes wide. "You're not _human_."

I sighed. "I _am_. Just not entirely. It's…complicated."

Missy let go of my shoulder, her frown not leaving her face as she pinched her brow. "You're actually okay, kid?"

"I'm _fine, Mom_. Really. It's simple, I just moved a _tiny_ part of myself away from this reality into somewhere quieter. Yes, it makes it harder to react and interact _here_ while I have to keep everything straight between the two - especially on a damn asteroid space station that only exists in a tiny fraction of all realities - but in a place like this, it's easier than not being able to _hear_. I'm _weird_. Okay? Can we move on? Please?"

Missy stared at me for another few moments, sighing. "You're not…" she trailed off waving her hand in the air. "Floundering?"

I bit back the first reply that came to me. Then the second and the third as well. Finally, I took a deep breath and let it out slow. "I learned my lesson. I _don't_ shift enough of myself to _flounder_. _Ever_. I would rather die. Okay?"

_[Horizon] verifies._

I shot a glare across the not-space towards the shard. It didn't even deign to respond to me, only continuing to reassure Missy.

She nodded. "Okay."

Tali lowered her omnitool and leaned closer to me. "Can I ask you some questions when we get back to the ship? Would I be overstepping?"

"No, Tali, that's fine, just…later. Legion? Do you have any comments too? You're the only one that isn't goggling like I'm a fucking fish in an aquarium."

The Geth cocked its head. "Why would Legion have an adverse reaction? Dragon-Prime advised that Shepard-Commander was unique in manufacture."

"She did, did she?" I would have to have a talk with Aunt 'Resa about sharing personal information.

"Human." I turned towards the gravelly voice behind me, glaring.

"We were having a conversation."

The krogan laughed, the dull red of his hump shaking. "I love your species. You look so breakable, and yet you have spines stronger than steel."

"Currently my spine actually _is_ stronger than steel. Can I help you…"

He waved over his shoulder. "I'm the Patriarch. Aria saw you and yours chatting down here and decided she wanted to talk to you. Follow me."

I rolled my eyes. "Well, that's convenient. We were actually coming to talk to her, so this makes things easy." The krogan just shrugged, turned and started to amble away. As we fell into line behind him I asked, "So what are you a Patriarch of? Is that a Krogan thing or an Omega thing?"

"It's an Aria thing," he snorted. "I ran this station for over 300 years. Then she beat me badly enough I was down to my last lung and only one heart. When I dropped out of my blood rage I found out she hadn't even had the decency to give me a warrior's death. She renamed me instead."

Missy winced. "That's cold. So you're not even a glorified enforcer huh? You're what, a reminder not to fuck with her?"

"That's Aria for you. She doesn't waste what she can use. And she can be vindictive as hell. Some free advice from an old krogan, Steel Spine, stay out of the blue bitch's way."

I nodded. "Yeah, thanks." He nodded, waved the way up the stairs that we had come to and walked off back to a corner of the large bar. I saw a few of the exotic dancers head in his direction and sighed. "Man, poor guy."

"Well," Tali said, "he did run a Terminus station for 300 years. He couldn't really have expected it to end _well_. I'm sure that this isn't how a krogan warlord would like to die, but…"

"Yeah," I said. "Alright, come on guys." Turning, I led the way upwards.

When we got to the top, two goons held out their arms and started to move towards me, omnitools already out in what looked like a scanner formation. I just raised my eyebrows and glanced over their heads towards the Asari lounging on the couch. "Really?"

She smirked, a small chuckle reaching my ears. "It's standard practice for anyone meeting with me. You can't really expect my men to not follow normal procedures now can you? Why, some of them are barely trained! What would they do if I shook things up now?"

As the scanner ran over me I snorted. "I'm about 95% certain my sister passed through here already. You can take my gun if you want, but we both know that that's not going to do anything to stop me if I want to hurt anyone."

"Of course it won't. It wouldn't even slow me down and I don't have your benefits of cheating quite so spectacularly. It might be _slightly_ more effective with Miss Short and Angry there," she said gesturing towards Missy, "but I doubt it. Or perhaps…less, depending on…you are, _Jane_ Hebert correct?"

"Finally, someone in this galaxy isn't calling me Shepard," I muttered. Louder, I replied, "Yes." The men finished, stepping aside and letting all of us pass, not bothering to take any of our weapons.

Tali and Legion stayed standing as Missy and I say on a second couch across from Aria. The asari nodded. "Well, in that case, it's a pleasure to meet the second daughter of the great and power Goddess Taylor herself."

I blinked. "I'm not sure if I should be offended by that or not." My Intuition wasn't helping me at all here.

Aria chuckled. "Good."

"So you asked to talk?"

"Well, you can't just saunter into my club and not expect to come up here. Not as the daughter of one of the most powerful people in the galaxy. Did you know that your mother is apparently cloning herself just so she can go terrify the Citadel Council now? Oh if only I could learn that trick…"

I smiled. At least this was more familiar ground for me. Pulling on Charm a little I leaned back, spreading my arms. "Mother is good at being casually terrifying. Half the time she doesn't even realize she's doing it."

"Mmm, what an intriguing woman. Perhaps you should convince her to stop by Omega one of these days."

Wait, what. "Well, she has a lot to do, what with running Sol and watching over all of our people…"

"Then perhaps I should saunter over to Sol myself for a quick visit. I'm sure I could justify the trip by getting an enhancement or two to keep my rule here cemented for a few centuries more. Maybe I could even improve the station itself using some of your technology. Your mother likes…trades doesn't she?"

Okay, hard stop. _Hard_ stop. "I try to stay out of that sort of thing to be perfectly honest."

Aria laughed. She glanced at Missy and raised an eyebrow. "Is she always this easy?"

Missy shrugged. "First real time out of the system. She's learning, I'm supervising. Don't try to hurt her or I will literally leave your head shoved up your own ass."

I groaned while Aria's grin just widened. "Oh I _like_ you. You both are far more entertaining than your fellow family member. Innocence, naivety, and bloodlust. It's an excellent combination." She leaned back laying out her arms over the back of the chair. "Shame you aren't intimate."

I grimaced. "Thanks for that image. Now I'm going to have nightmares. Do you mind pointing us in the direction of my sister? We're not here to impose and we have no desire to upset anything you have going on. We're just trying to meet up with Enola and get her out of your hair."

"Assuming she has gotten the data she needed," Missy commented. "She'll _probably_ have it by the time we get to her, but if she doesn't we might be around for a few more hours while she works."

Aria tilted her head towards Legion. "Considering you have a Geth with you, that was fairly obvious. Normally I require favors for my help, even for something as simple as information exchange."

"But…" I said.

"But," Aria leaned forward, her eyes narrowing and her elbows coming to rest on her knees as her gaze caught my own. "I don't like having three different Emissaries of Herbertology on Omega. I don't like it one bit. One is fine, one I can stand. One brings me notice, power, and esteem. One is good for business. Two stretches things. Three, well that's just a powder keg waiting for a spark. My normal reaction is to get someone or something to force the offending parties off my station. The thing is, I haven't survived this long by being suicidal."

I nodded. "We really aren't here to cause trouble and my sister isn't - actually, okay, my sister, might cause it entirely by accident. She gets consumed by her work and doesn't even realize she's poking her nose where it's a good idea not to poke things."

"You don't say," Aria smirked. "That's exactly what she is doing right now. She's somehow managed to incite the Blue Suns into going after her. I'm not a fan of the current iteration of the Blue Suns, so I don't actually mind this. But any war started could spread which I _do_ mind. I also don't want your little family to tear apart my station with your little spat. So, here's my information: if you want your sister, you'll need to get to her before the Blue Suns do. Either sneak past them, destroy a hefty majority of them yourself, or find their leader and talk them down."

I frowned. "Do you know why they're angry at Enola?"

"It's actually not Enola Hebert that they are angry at. It's her friend, the turian. He saved some girl that they were trying to kill for a client. They took umbrage at that."

"Ah. I see." Well, so much for diplomacy. I wasn't going to go paying off mercenaries that had accepted an assassination job. "Can you provide a map?"

"Your quarian already has it." Aria leaned back again and smiled. "Good luck. Do try not to blow up my station. I will be quite…perturbed and likely find some way to kill you before I die if you manage to do that."

"Noted," I said, standing and barely managing to avoid rolling my eyes.

As we started to walk away, Aria called out one more thing. "Oh, Jane? Don't forget to tell your mother that she should _really_ come visit Omega some day!"

I swallowed and hurried down the stairs. No. Fucking. Way. Was I going to get involved in my parents' sex lives. No. Fucking. _Way_.


	8. Some Battles Can't Be Won (Part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This omake came about after some discussion on my Discord. It's just a bit of fun slice of life for Taylor and her family. For those interested, this is the song that Taylor is trying to beat all through this chapter. Holy cow, I have so much respect for people who can do this.
> 
> '[Beat Saber] Reality Check Through the Skull (Expert+)' and apparently 'Overkill' is worse...
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NViO_-lDNPE
> 
> This is Part 2 of 2, Part 1 was posted in Mutant Deviations as it is set during that fic's time period. Enjoy!

**Some Battles Can't Be Won (Part 2)**

Erica heard a muffled growl echo through the house. She lowered the sandwich she had been about to eat and frowned as she looked towards the main room. "What the hell?"

The growl turned into a shout of inarticulate rage a few moments later. Swiftly followed by her mom shouting, "I _hit_ that fucking block! _WHY WON'T YOU REGISTER IT_!"

Erica's head smacked against the table, her sandwich forgotten. "Oh goddess, not again." Picking herself up from the kitchen island, she marched towards the living room like a woman heading to the gallows. As she got closer the sounds of music - and horribly off-beat sounds of failure - reached her. "I thought we had all agreed it was banned in this house…"

She peeked around the corner of the wall, finding what she had feared: Her mom was standing in the middle of the room, an old style VR headset firmly planted over her face, controllers in hand, and an ancient copy of Beat Sabers flashing by on the TV screen. To her surprise, Dean was sitting on the couch a few feet away, his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide.

Erica groaned. Well, that explained some of it at least. She jumped over the back of the couch, letting herself fall next to her brother. He barely reacted. "What did you do, baby brother?"

"I just…nothing…I just…"

"Uh huh. Mom never breaks out that game unless someone prompts her. Out with it, what did you do?"

"Dean, just watch, I'm _going_ to get this this time!" Their mom said. She turned and tried to flash a reassuring grin. It just looked pained and desperate to Erica's eyes.

"Mom, really, it's okay. I just wanted to - "

"Just watch, baby, I got this. I _totally_ got this."

"She really doesn't," Erica muttered.

"What… _is_ this?" Dean whispered as the level started over again.

Erica sighed and wrapped an arm around her brother pulling him into her side. "Brother, this is Hell. You're watching Mom's version of Hell."

"Erica Hebert, don't you dare jinx me. I'm going to beat this goddamn thing if it's the last thing I do!"

"Mom," Erica said, rolling her eyes. "You can barely get through 'Through the Fire and Flames' with Guitar Hero. This is worse. Just…stop punishing yourself. For all of our sakes."

"I can do it! Just…just watch." The song started again and again Taylor cried out in anguish less than two minutes in.

Erica turned to Dean and gestured to the screen. "That is 'Reality Check Through the Skull'. It's basically our Mom's version of Satan. Let's give her some space and find Lisa. She…might be able to get Mom away from it. Or maybe your mother. I think Vicky was able to distract her long enough for us to hide the game last time this happened."

"I just…asked what sort of games she played back when she was a kid…"

Erica snorted and pulled Dean from the couch. "Yup, that would do it. Come on, baby brother. Leave Mom to her torment. Mom, you want me to call up RCB and cancel your meetings for the afternoon?"

"I. Got. This!" Taylor snarled. "Make sure that Becca knows that I'll make the damn meeting with the trade rep!"

"Uh huh. Whatever you say, Mom."

Dean looked at Erica with wide eyes as they retreated. "She's not going to make the meeting is she?"

"Oh she'll make it. I'm just going to have them come _here_ instead. That Asari was a right bitch the last time I talked to her. I can't wait to see her face when she sees _this_." Erica paused and tapped her bottom lip, shrugging a moment later. "And hey, maybe we'll get lucky and it will knock Mom out of her obsession."

* * *

Nassana Dantius was many things. A diplomat, a businesswoman, a prime example of success in her family.

She was not a simple ambassador. Not by a long shot. Yet, she had accepted the request for a trade liaison with the Humans. It was notoriously difficult to get such an assignment with the newly discovered race and with the power that people were talking about…well it certainly wouldn't hurt to get on their good side. Besides, if her slaver bitch of a sister ever tried to blackmail her now, she'd have _accomplishments_ to hold up against the degenerate. All Nassana would have to do was wave her agreements with Humanity in her detractors face and Dahlia Dantius' relationship to her would never matter again.

But she would have to _finish_ the agreement first. And that, apparently, necessitated talking with their Goddess Incarnate directly. Why the Goddess had designated herself as the final approval authority for this tech trade she didn't know or care. All that mattered was that she was going to see an aspect of the Goddess in the flesh.

Nassana was not a religious woman. She hadn't even believed in the Goddess before Humanity's arrival on the scene. Then she had seen the holos of what they could do, she had seen the Goddess' own actions when the Council visited the Sol system. She had seen and she had understood. The Goddess was _very_ real, and she was _very_ powerful. And she was still approachable enough to take visitors.

Meaning that Nassana had a chance to improve her standing with damn near _everyone_ by getting the ear of a Goddess.

"Again, I apologize for the change of venue," Director Costa-Brown said for the third time as they approached the massive household near the lake. "I still haven't got an explanation for why we've shifted locations."

"It's really not a problem." Nassana took this as a good sign indeed. If they were visiting the Goddess at home, she stood an even higher chance of completing her goal. Nassana's mouth watered as she thought of the things that she could do. If she was able to manage to _seduce_ the notoriously promiscuous Goddess…why that would open _so. Many. Doors_. She'd be set for life by the simple implication of it! Her family would never be able to touch her works again!

"This is the Hebert Household. Please watch your step and don't touch anything. Some of the family can be a bit…particular about their things."

"That's perfectly understandable. My family is rather touchy about their own items as well." Research, political assets, new technology, slaves…Her family could probably do with a bit of pruning honestly.

The door to the residence had barely closed behind them when a cry of rage echoed from the next room. Nassana's eyes widened and her hand drifted to the pistol concealed behind her back under her robes. Was this a setup after all?

"Oh for…" Director Costa-Brown muttered. She flipped out her communicator and tapped away on it for a moment before speaking again. "Erica! You said that your mother was in residence; you never mentioned she was indisposed!"

Nassana leaned ever so slightly closer, _just_ enough to hear the other side of the conversation.

"Dean got her going with Beat Saber again. I didn't feel like spending half the day trying to pry her away. Good luck getting her to focus enough to finish the deal!"

"Erica, there will be consequences for this."

"Nah, Dantius is a bitch, she deserves to be a bit waylaid. Besides, I already called Lisa and I think she sent one of our Moms over to help out. Have fun Aunty Brown!"

"Don't hang up on me young lady or I will - " The line cut off and Nassana had to suppress a snicker. It appeared that children were the same no matter the culture. She couldn't even fault the girl for her description - she _was_ right after all.

"Shall we?" Nassana asked, inclining her head towards the grumbling.

Director Costa-Brown sighed and nodded. "Might as well get this over with. It's not like she's going to come up for air before you leave."

This trade agreement would be so, much, _simpler_. If the Goddess was distracted then she would…she would…Nassana swallowed hard, her hands clenched into fists and her eyes widened. "Wh-What is _that_?"

The blocks were flashing by so quickly as to be barely noticeable before they vanished in a blaze of light. There were obstacles that came out of nowhere that forced the Goddess to duck and bob and weave and yet near instantly the invisible blades lashed out at the holo display again and again and the blocks vanished with a swell of the beat. A beat that almost immediately went off rhythm and crashed with an electronic screech and a red scroll of letters proclaiming failure.

"This stupid fucking game," the Goddess muttered, swiping the device on her head off.

"You know, you almost had it that time," Emissary Clements-Hebert said, smiling as she stepped up to the Goddess and hugged her. Then she took the control devices. "Talk to your people. I'll play one round and then we can put it away, okay?"

The Goddess looked to Nassana and Director Costa-Brown, nodded once, then turned back to the Emissary. "They can wait another two minutes. I want to see again how you get through that last part. I swear I _had_ it. There has to be a damn trick."

"I keep telling you, Taylor, you _flick_ , not _swipe_. One round. Just one. Deal?"

"Deal."

The lights and the blocks started up again and Nassana's horror grew as time elongated. Emissary Clements-Hebert had no enhancements outside of survivability. She was, for all intents and purposes, a baseline Human. A Human who was _surpassing the Goddess_. The numbers for the score ticked ever upwards and the music swelled louder and louder.

Finally as the crescendo hit the peak, everything ground to a halt with neon letters flashing on the screen. 'Level Cleared'.

"I just…I don't get it. How can you do that so easily?" the Goddess muttered. "I've been trying to pass this damn thing for decades now…"

"Taylor…maybe it's time to just admit that there are some battles you just can't win?"

Nassana found it hard to breathe and she couldn't hear Director Costa-Brown murmuring beside her. The Goddess could crack a planet if she wished. Nassana had _seen_ that footage. And yet she was being outdone by a _baseline Human_.

The stories from Nassana's childhood were wrong. It wasn't a Devi hiding under the bed or Palven in the closet. It was a Human.

What in the Goddess' name had been unleashed on this galaxy?


	9. Investigation 04

**Investigation 04**

_Current Active subsystems: Durability, Reflexes, Charm, Intuition_

"I really wish we could stop for 15 minutes so I could switch out my Charm subsystem," I muttered. "That's going to be useless if Enola and her friend have already gotten into a firefight."

Tali shook her head. "Well, if you're able to talk sense into the mercenaries, shouldn't we try that first?"

"I don't talk to people who accept assassination missions as a rule. Okay, maybe if they were assassinating an evil criminal overlord that would be something I could bend that rule on, but this is someone that Enola's partner felt was worth protecting, meaning it was someone _Enola_ felt was worth protecting. Ergo, someone decent and not anyone I'd be willing to let mercenaries assassinate. Whoever accepted that job is on my shit list and I'm not going to just 'talk' to them if we cross paths."

Missy smirked. "See Tali, this is what happens when you grow up surrounded by people who have an attitude that basically boils down to 'play nice until the gloves come off'."

Tali held a hand in front of her eyes for a moment, murmured something too quiet for me to hear and then said, "And what happens when the gloves come off?"

"Well then usually people are smashed through walls, punted into new zip codes, or new timelines."

"Warper-Emissary, that is a rather extreme response," Legion commented.

"Yup. We play nice for a very long time though. It takes a lot to piss off the extended Hebert household these days. If you keep going until that point, the consequences are on you." Her smile elicited a quiet groan from me. I had never understood how Missy had been the tagalong kid once-upon-a-time. She certainly wasn't nearly as mild-mannered since I'd been born.

_[Jane] you are approaching Mordin[Scientist]! [Intuit] reminds [Jane] that if she is able to stop and convince the Salarian to join our expedition, [Intuit] would be most grateful!_

I couldn't stop my chuckle as I rolled my eyes at the shard. _I'd prefer to meet up with Enola, [Intuit], but sure. I can make a five minute stop. No promises on if Mordin will agree to come with us._

I got a mental smiley face back coupled with the image of a pirate holding two guns to the sky, a huge grin on his face.

"Oh, my, god. Aunt Missy, tell me you overheard that."

"Oh yeah. We are never letting Enola live that down. Intuit is such a _neeerrrrrd_."

"What just occurred, Shepard-Commander?"

"They communicated on an alternate wavelength…Intriguing, I saw this all of the time in Sol, but I haven't picked it up at all out here…" Tali said, trailing off and glancing at me. "I have so many questions."

"When we get back to the ship, Tali."

I angled us to the side, heading into a clinic that [Intuit] had pointed me towards. We were barely through the door before I was practically assaulted by a Salarian with his omnitool out and running a scan down my body.

"Hmm. No broken bones. No diseases. Internal organs reinforced through uncertain means. Stable. Cross-dimensional pinhole wormholes present in biology. Appears endemic. Appears natural. _Interesting_. Irrelevant to health. Perfect health." He paused, seeming to finally draw a breath as his eyes lifted from the omnitool and met my eyes. "Why have you come to my clinic Miss Hebert if you are healthy?"

I smirked, holding out my hand which he shook - just as quickly as he talked. "Good afternoon, Mr. Solus. I'm here doing a favor for my sister's shard, [Intuit]. You never officially met, even though you met Enola, and either way, he's a big fan of yours. I'm happy to say that in the 15 seconds we've met you have _not_ disappointed. Figuring out who I am without me saying a word is very impressive."

He shrugged, moving back to a table and grabbing a few vials to start mixing something together. "Was not hard. Humans rare outside of Sol. With Enola Hebert on Omega, bound to be another Emissary following in her wake. An Emissary with internal multidimensional shifts _not_ confined to brain? Only one. You are Jane Hebert."

Missy straightened, her eyes narrowing as she stepped in front of me. "That information isn't widely available."

Mordin nodded, not even looking at Missy. "Correct. STG good at their job. Former teammates share information when asked. Humans are intriguing. _Many_ possibilities. Have considered approaching for assistance in research." He paused and grimaced. "STG are deficient in Sol, unwilling to admit failure. Had to approach Asari for information. Embarrassing. Embarrassing for all parties."

I laid a hand on Missy's shoulder, trying to pull her back, but she didn't budge. "Mr. Solus -"

"Mordin. Mr. Solus was father. Feel old when addressed like that."

"Mordin then. You don't intend to use the information of my nature against us do you?"

"Should I?"

"I was actually planning to try to entice you to join up with us. We could offer a lot of good resources to continue whatever research you have going on and since you already know about _me_ , if you want, I could let you get closer scans."

He looked up, frowning. "Only with permission, only if comfortable. Do not work on unwilling patients. Unethical."

Missy scowled. "If you were with the STG beforehand then -"

"Yes. Many unethical events in my past. Hence, clinic." He waved his arm around us. "Trying to make up for past. Trying to help. Would Taylor Hebert accept my work on genophage?"

Tali gasped, her hand dropping to her firearm while Missy cocked her head. _Intuition_ whispered to me, and I was finally able to push my mom behind me as I looked to Mordin, pulling on _Charm_. "You're way too young for the original work. A touch-up?"

He nodded. "A mistake. Clinic will never be enough to undo."

"We can help."

"Would unleash Krogan."

"We have Humanity to cow them if they get uppity again."

"Humans prefer sanctuary of Sol."

"And yet we leave to help if needed. My sister is here; I'm here. Another of my family just left the Batarian homeworld freeing most of their slaves. The Krogan didn't deserve the genophage."

"No. Did not."

I crossed my arms and leaned back against a side table, my lips curving up in a small smile. "It sounds like you made a decision years ago. You don't need me to talk you into a goal you have already been working towards."

He laughed. "Underestimated you. My mistake. Question first: what was purpose of Enola Hebert's visit to station? Did not answer before hurrying away."

"There's a sentient starship that is brainwashing its crew out there somewhere and some of the Geth have started to worship it like a god. We're worried about what that implies so we're looking into it."

Legion nodded. "The heretics have embraced the Old Machines. The concerns raised by Dragon-Prime have alerted the Geth that allowing the heretics to leave in peace may have been in error. This platform has been assigned to assist in tracking and determining the status of the Old Machines as well as the extent of their influence on the galaxy."

"Interesting. Why are Geth involved? Geth are reclusive, not interested in galactic politics," Mordin asked.

"The Geth are attempting to reintegrate with the Quarians using humanity as intermediary. We have reached consensus that assisting in preventing potential damage caused by heretics would prove our intent to the Creators."

Tali twisted, staring at Legion. "You're _what_?!"

I held out a hand towards the Geth. "See. I told you that they weren't that bad."

Mordin nodded. "Very well. This is mission I agree with. You will contact your mother upon mission conclusion?"

"Of course." I held out my hand again, raising my eyebrows. "We'd be happy to have you aboard, Mordin."

"Happy to work with professionals again." He grabbed my arm and shook it enthusiastically, smiling widely. "Will pack up clinic and move possessions to ship. Meet there?"

"That works for me. I'll catch up with you in a bit, Mordin."

As we stepped out of the clinic leaving the Salarian to his work, I mentally poked at [Intuit]. _So, buddy, I got you your Salarian…_

_[Jane]! You are the best [Sister] a [Shard] could ask for! [Intuit] will get you a [Pirate] in return. [Intuit] will speak with Enola[Bonded] and ensure that she is aware that Aria[Pirate] is reserved for [Jane] and should be approached prior to leaving Omega Station!_

I groaned and slapped a hand to my face. Glaring at Missy I snarled, "Not. A. Single. _Word_."

Her answering grin was too wide for mere mortals. "I have five! 'Never. Going. To. Live. It. Down'."

"That's six!"

"Yes, and your point is…?"

"…I hate you."

Legion looked between the two of us, the light on his head blinking rapidly. "Can Warper-Emissary not count?"


	10. Investigation 05

**Investigation 05**

_Current Active subsystems: Durability, Reflexes, Charm, Intuition_

The sound of weapons fire echoed down the corridor as we turned yet another corner in this seemingly endless asteroid station.

"Anyone want to take bets on that being our people?" Aunt Missy asked, picking up her pace, the space in front of us shortening to help speed us along as we started to jog.

"This is Omega," Tali said. "I'll leave five credits on it being some other shootout."

"Legion does not own currency. Dragon-Prime assured this platform that all needs would be met by the crew or the Commander. Should Legion open a currency account, Shepard-Commander?"

"Whatever you want to do to be independent, Legion. Also, no bet," I muttered.

"Are you cheating?" Missy asked, a grin spreading over her face as the firing came again, this time accompanied by shouts.

"I don't need to cheat. I have the Hebert Family Luck, whatever the hell that means. It's them."

We charged around the last bend, only for Missy to immediately pinch space again to pull a wall next to us as a sniper round shot through the area we had come out of. Tali squealed even as she leveled her pistol towards the distant assailant. Legion just raised his own sniper rifle. Missy and I nodded towards the scorch mark.

"Enola's partner has good aim," I remarked.

"Could've waited to see who was coming out before he fired though."

"We're on Omega and they've instigated a merc war somehow. I'm okay with him shooting first."

"Want me to go say hello?"

I shook my head and raised my rifle, aiming it towards the three mercenaries covering behind some rubble directly in front of me, their blue and white armor making them stick out like sore thumbs. They hadn't even bothered to look behind them at the noise. In their - minor - defense, though, the sniper had shifted back to targeting them again, even managing to pick one of their number off in the short time since we had arrived.

"Nah. Let's just shoot the mercs and walk up like normal people."

"What is _wrong_ with your family?" Tali hissed behind me. Her indignation did nothing to stop her from shooting one of the Blue Suns members at least. I felled the remaining person with an accurate shot from my own rifle.

Glancing around, I shrugged and stuck my weapon onto my back, waltzing onto the short bridge ahead of us. "That was a bit anticlimactic. Three guys only? Oh, wait, there's the rest. Wow, that's a lot of bodies."

"Shepard-Commander, Legion counts 61 dead. Possibly more. Several blood trails indicate potential for beings to have fallen off the side of the bridge."

"Does that woman look, uh, crushed to you guys? She looks crushed to me," Tali asked, her head locked on one of the mercenaries that we passed.

I nodded. "Yup. Definitely crushed. There's a few that look like a strong biotic got to them. Aunt Missy, was the C-Sec operative a biotic?"

"Techie I think. I didn't really read the full report Lisa sent. I know he was Turian and his commanders didn't like him, but he seemed right up our alley. I lost interest after that."

"Auntie," I groaned, slapping a hand to my forehead.

"Don't use that tone with me. Lisa's reports are _boring_. If there was anything important she would have just told me directly. Or told you."

I caught a glint from a sniper rifle on the balcony above us and I stopped short as a round impacted the ground a few inches from my feet. A moment later a male voice called down, "Stay where you are or the next one goes through your skull!"

"No shooting! No shooting! Stop shooting! They're not shooting, stop shooting! No shooting!"

I frowned, my eyes narrowing as _Intuition_ whispered to me. "That was a kid…"

"Are you sure?" Tali asked, stepping next to me and holding her omnitool out. "I'm showing four life signs in there, but I can't see specifics on ages."

"It's definitely a kid. Early to mid teens from the voice inflection and slight panic." I shook my head and held up a hand to shade my eyes. Raising my voice to a low shout I called out, "Hey, Enola! I got three friendlies with me here and I'd appreciate it if you call your buddy off before Aunt Missy has to knock him out."

"Baby Sis?!" Enola yelled. There was a clatter from above and muffled cursing, then my sister leaned halfway over the railing, her shoulder-length blonde hair hanging down in a curtain around her face, her eyes wide, and with a huge smile as she waved down at us. "Baby Sis! Janey! Hi! Welcome to Omega! What are you doing here! Oh wow, whoops. Thanks, Garrus, appreciate that."

"How have you _survived_ this long?" the Turian muttered as he hauled her back over onto the floor, steadying her from her near fall when she had tipped too far over the rail. "It's like watching a particularly unobservant child. Hey! Does this human belong to you! If you're with her can you please try to talk some sense into her! I'm running out of ammo and we're due for another push by the Blue Suns in about 5 minutes. I would like to leave while we can."

"I'm not _done_ , Garrus! Janey, we blew up the stairs, but…Oh! Missy was with you, that works! Missy, can you get Janey and your friends up to us?"

"Got it covered, Enola." Missy rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers. Tali squealed in surprised dismay as she was suddenly standing over empty air 20 feet up along with the rest of us then, before we had a chance to fall more than an inch, we were firmly planted on the upper level of the facility that Enola had commandeered.

I glanced around and my eyes widened as I nearly stepped backwards in surprise. Enola and her Turian conscript hadn't just picked up a single stray. They'd grabbed _two_. And I had been right. One was a younger teenager, maybe fourteen. The other was an Asari. A scientist from her lab coat-esque uniform and frightened doe-eyes. She was crouched next to a glowing Geth terminal, apparently trying to stand between it and us even as she kept one eye on the text scrolling behind her.

_Maiden-stage. First exposure to true concerted violence. Knows how to fight, prior experience with raids? Pistol clenched too tightly to be accurate with it. Hand raised not in warding gesture but in targeting motion. Biotic. Focused on biotics, firearms is secondary._

Hmm, so the Asari scientist was probably the one who had crushed some of the mercenaries then. But…with how skittish she seemed…

"Garrus, Enola? Are they friends? They aren't shooting. They are friends. Right? Friends? Please? Please…no more shooting. It's too loud." The younger girl though…she was sitting on the ground, her hands around her ears as she took deep breaths - breaths coming far too regularly to be natural; she had to be concentrating to keep herself that even. And she was defaulting to Enola and her partner already, looking to them for reassurance, for confirmation of safety. My lips lifted in a silent snarl - _this_ was who those fucking mercenaries were after.

Missy growled under her breath just behind me and started to step forward but I beat her to it. She wasn't the one with a _Charm_ subsystem after all.

I threw up the best smile I had learned from my wider family and crouched down in front of the kid. "Hi there. I'm Jane and these are my friends, Missy, Tali, and Legion. Enola is my sister. We are friends, yes, and I promise there won't be any more shooting."

Garrus sighed, hefting his rifle. "Sorry to interrupt, but if we don't leave right now, there will be. They've been coming like clockwork every 15 minutes for the past two hours. I would _really_ like to leave this facility. I would like to leave this entire _station_. The lack of any sort of law and order here is - let's say 'grating' and leave it at that. Liara, are you finished translating yet?"

"I keep telling you, my focus is on archeoxenobiology! This is not my field! This is not even related to my field. I have been studying _Protheans_ for 50 years, not Geth or cryptic references to precursors that are _clearly_ not Protheans. I am not this kind of doctor!"

"Well," Enola stepped, stepping up to me and punching my shoulder. "Janey brought us a Geth, because she's my favorite sister. How about you two collaborate? I'll bring up the schematics again! Mr. Geth, can you step over here please? My scientist needs some help with your language. We can't move the terminal we found so we really need to finish things up here before we can leave."

"Why do you keep just volunteering everyone around you? Is this a human thing that I wasn't aware of?" the Asari - Liara - asked. Her hands dropped and she moved back to the terminal as Legion walked next to her.

"I believe it's just this particular human, Doctor T'Soni," Garrus sighed. "At least you're picking up on it faster than I did. I didn't realize I was in trouble until we were halfway to Omega. So I suppose we're not leaving yet?"

"I'm not _done_ ," Enola said, both fists shaking towards the Turian. "We need the information in that terminal in order to find the next waypoint. And I'm _certain_ that it has something more about these Reaper Precursors. The Geth keep referring to them as the Old Machines and I _know_ that some of Liara's research points to them too. _During_ the time of the Protheans. Don't you want to know what they are? Don't either of you?! They're called _Reapers_! That's important!"

Missy ignored Enola and addressed Garrus directly instead. "Normally, I'd try to reign in my niece. But in this particular case, I'm going to agree that we aren't leaving yet. Even if we didn't need the data in that thingamajig…" She trailed off, glancing at the teen who had finally dropped her hands from her ears and was falling back into a normal breathing rhythm as she held my gaze. "Who had the contract for the kid?"

Tali jerked, whipping around to stare at Missy. "What?! They weren't targeting the Asari doctor? That would be - but - this doesn't make any sense!"

"She's a powerful biotic, aren't you, sweetheart?" I said, holding my hands out palm up, as I slowly stood. The girl glanced at my hands with narrowed eyes. She very deliberately shook her head, then pushed herself to her feet as well.

"Gillian doesn't like being touched or to touch others, Janey," Enola said. "I know how _I_ figured out she was strong biotic. Watched her tear apart a giant mech I did. How did you figure it out? Got an Intuition spec up?"

"Yes. Liara here is obviously a biotic too, just from her stance I can see that. But she's not used to fighting people actually trying to kill her, so she wouldn't be brutal. Some of those mercs were just simply crushed."

"Ah. Yup, that would be a good clue. I'll have to let Mom know you are getting better at cold reading! She'll be so proud. Now, if only I could convince you to switch to blonde for when I tell her…"

"Never gonna happen, Sis." Gillian finally returned my smile and I nodded, stepping back. "We're going to make sure these people don't come after you again, sweetheart. Then we'll get you back to your family."

"No family. None left. Father was nice, but father left. Said he was dangerous to be around. Said I wasn't safe with him. Said he would just hurt me. Don't know his name. Don't want to go back if I did. Better to go to Earth. Can I go to Earth? I heard it was nice there."

"Of course, Gillian. I promise, we'll get you back to Earth. My family will be happy to find you a home there."

She nodded, her shoulders dropping as some of the tension slipped away from her. I went to stand by Missy and Garrus as Enola moved over to Liara and Legion. Tali quickly stepped to us as well. "Alright, Garrus, I need to know, did you and Enola get any information on the person who set the bounty for Gillian?"

The Turian scowled - at least, I thought he did, Turian expressions were hard to read. "Someone named Tim. That's all I got out of the mercs. Apparently the original bounty was for Alive, but the local leader of the Blue Suns personally decided it could be interpreted as Alive _or_ Dead and that he preferred Dead. This was after she destroyed what amounted to a quarter of his operations, by accident, when he managed to get his hands on her. We ran across her as we were looking for the terminal here. We've been protecting her for the past few hours while Dr. T'Soni attempted to crack the encryption."

"What's his name? The Blue Suns leader that decided he wanted to kill an autistic teenager," I asked, my voice very quiet and very level. Missy had her arms crossed as she stared across the bridge back towards the entryway.

"Zaeed Massani. I'm pretty sure he's human…Doesn't your species like to stick together."

"A lot of us follow Taylor wherever she leads us," Missy said. "Not everyone was happy with her. A lot of _those_ we moved to other Instances at their request. It was easier and safer for everyone. Not everybody liked that option though. There are always going to be some dissidents and some asshole wannabe warlords who think they are hot shit. Normally we let them do their thing. Fair's fair, everyone has a right to be an asshole."

"Until they make themselves our problem. Then we clean up our mess," I said, staring over the balcony. "You see them, Mom?"

"Thirty hostiles," she replied.

"Enola, can I trust you to stay focused enough to protect the rest of the people here for fifteen minutes?"

"Sure, sure, I got it covered, Janey. Thanks to Legion here we have the code cracked anyway! If you want to go bust some heads with Missy, we can meet you back at the ship when we're done. Your ship or mine?"

"We're still not sure if it's safe for you to travel through a Relay on a separate ship from your shard. I'll meet you on yours and Missy can head back to mine. Tali, Legion, don't fight while we're gone."

Garrus sighted down his rifle as he moved back to his previous position. "The big one in the mech at the back should have a map on him that leads back to their base. None of them have come close enough for me to get a copy myself and they tend to be destroyed by their own people, if the pilots are killed - to prevent salvage. Do you think you can get to him before they blow it up again?"

"Won't be a problem," Missy grunted.

"I'll cover you."

I nodded to him, not looking away from my target. My _Charm_ subsystem finally finished swapping out for _Strength_. "Thank you, but it's not needed. Just get any stragglers and help protect the others."

"On your mark, kid," Missy said.

I racked my shotgun and smiled. "Let's go show Mr. Massani that killing children is not considered acceptable behavior."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I apologize if I'm getting Gillian's characterization wrong. I never read the books and the details on her are fairly sparse in the wiki and tvtropes. All I can really tell is that she doesn't like being touched, is at least on the spectrum, is badass, is supposed to be some sort of biotic savior (somehow...), and is killed in a horrifically stupid fashion by one of the plot-armored characters in the series. So yeah, Gillian gets a bit of a better showing here and I'm going to try and do her justice as well as I can.


	11. Investigation 06

**Investigation 06**

_Current Active subsystems: Durability, Reflexes, Intuition, Strength_

"Oh you did _not_ just shoot a rocket at me!"

I leaned to the side as Missy caught the incoming projectile and twisted it through a loop of space. An instant later it was flying back towards a screaming mercenary. I didn't spare the man or his two compatriots any further attention; their shields wouldn't stand up to the rocket. Instead, I knelt and punched one of the larger pieces of the debris lying in front of me. It went arcing through the air and knocked another of the mercs off the narrow platform. Her scream faded even as I pushed off the ground and smashed my fist into the front of the mech ahead.

"Stop screaming, assholes! This is what you get for trying to kill a kid!"

"It's just a job you psycho bitch!"

I glared to the side at the mercenary that had yelled back at Missy. The pilot of the mech shouted something inarticulate as I idly pulled the entire front of the cockpit off and threw it behind me. His shotgun didn't do anything to me except tickle and draw my attention back to him, my eyes narrowed. _Durability_ was a wonderful subsystem. I'd probably have a slight bruise later, but that would heal fast enough.

"What is wrong with you people?!" The merc yelled. His eyes were hidden behind his helmet, but I imagined they were wide and darting back and forth. I didn't particularly care.

"Your friend shouldn't have said that. A job being a job is fine, but there are jobs you don't take. My parents have always been _very_ particular about threatening kids. My Mother's sister was kidnapped when she was a child. Assassinating kids? It's like you _wanted_ us to wipe you out."

"I don't even know who you are, lady!"

I grinned, showing my teeth to the idiot. "Hebert. Jane Hebert. Not so nice to meet you. Tell you what, show me where your boss is and I'll let you live."

"Fuck you!" the merc snarled.

I shrugged. "Good choice, now I don't have to feel guilty later." Reaching through the gaping hole in the mech before he could jab at the self-destruct button, I wrapped my hand around his throat. I jerked my arm back and let go, sending him screaming over the edge of the bridge.

I climbed into the newly vacated cockpit and stared at the controls for a moment, soaking in the layout of the systems.

_Second panel from the left has local data. Second panel on the right has system settings._

Nodding to myself, I listened to my _Intuition_ and pulled up the area schematics on the left-hand panel. It only took a few seconds of searching before I found a facility map. "Oh wow, they didn't even bother to hide their base. No wonder they keep getting these mechs destroyed. Talk about lax security."

Downloading the data to my Armstool and memorizing it for good measure, I clambered back out of the machine. A quick roundhouse had it hurtling over the edge as well. I walked over to Missy as she stood, hands on her hips glaring down at one merc. This one was still alive, her hands on her head, bowed down to the floor, her whole body shaking.

"Not done yet?"

"She's trying to surrender. I'm trying to decide if I want to let her."

"Hmm," I knelt down and tapped the woman on the shoulder. She audibly swallowed as she lifted her forehead off of the ground and met my gaze. "How old are you?"

"53, Ma'am," the Asari mercenary answered. "This was my first job outside of Thessia. I just wanted adventure. Please, let me go. I'll go home. I'll wait until I'm older to go out again."

I frowned. "Did you know what you were signing up for?"

"Mercenary work."

"Not my question."

"The job was supposed to be to take the child to someone who could help her control her abilities. It only turned into killing her after she trashed a lot of our base and pissed off the boss."

_Had reservations about following through, but thought that was how the galaxy worked. Thought that people had to be hard to survive. Thought she had to learn to be hard._

My lips twisted into a scowl as I stared through her. "You still would've followed through."

"I-I had friends there. She killed them when she ran!"

_Attempting to gain sympathy._

I knew that. Sometimes my powers were stupid.

"Lift up your head and look at me." She followed my direction, shaking hard enough now that it was hard to keep her gaze locked on mine. "I'm going to ask you one more question. Your response determines if I let you live or not. You're smarter than your friends, but you don't get to lean on the 'following orders' excuse. Now, if you _had_ caught up to Gillian, would you have killed her or would you have let her go?"

She flinched, her jaw working silently as she looked to the weapons on my belt. Then she slumped, all of the fight leaving her. "If the others were around I don't think I would have been brave enough to go against them."

"And if they _weren't_ around? What kind of person are you in the dark?"

"I don't know," she whispered.

_Would likely have let Gillian leave and lied to the other mercenaries. Timid, but unlikely to go against personal morals without the threat of a weapon being turned on her._

I narrowed my eyes. "I'm not going to force you to go home, but you can't stay here. If you can't bring yourself to follow your own conscience then you have no business being in a place with as few laws as Omega. In places like this, you follow your own code, or you _stay the hell away_. If you can't muster up your own courage then go hide under your Matriarch's skirts until you can. Understand?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"You get one shot from my family," I said standing. "This is yours. Don't let it go to waste. Get the hell out of here and keep your nose out of trouble. You're very lucky that I think you can learn to stand up for your beliefs. Or, if I'm wrong and you can't, one day, I'll find you. And then you'll wish I killed you here. Next time I won't pull any punches."

"Yes, Ma'am, thank you Ma'am!" The mercenary scrambled to her feet and was running away almost before I had finished talking. I watched her until she had rounded the corner out and gone out of sight.

Missy glared at me, scowling. "Why did you let her go?"

"Lisa was on the wrong side to begin with too, but now she's family. Same with Mimi and Simmy. She should get a chance."

Missy huffed. "She's old enough that she should know better."

"Asari take longer to mature than humans, Auntie. Come on. I found the map. Let's go express our displeasure with Mr. Massani and then see if Enola found anything."

* * *

Ten minutes later I felt like I was wearing a permanent scowl as yet _more_ things blew up around me. The base was easy enough to get to. The initial whirlwind of rockets, bullets, and grenades was also child's play to ignore, thanks to Missy. I'd lost count of how many mercenaries I had killed at this point, and _still_ , they kept shooting at us. The mech I was holding up to block all of the stray rockets was little more than slag at this point, but it was slag doing its job well enough. Any shrapnel that made it past the scrapheap was swiftly diverted towards the nearest merc through twists of shortened space.

"Even the Batarians weren't this stupid. Don't any of them realize how _moronic_ it is to keep shooting at us?" I spat. I leaned to the left to knock a thrown grenade back the way it came. Panicked shouts were my reward - all of which almost immediately cut off as the thing exploded amidst four mercs.

"Normally, I would say that there is some benefit to continually attacking something until it dies," Missy said. She sighed as she walked beside me, twisting her hand and jerking her head - another Blue Suns member went from standing on solid ground to falling from 50 feet up. "Even gods can be killed if you get lucky and hit the right spot after all. Fortuna proved that."

"Yeah but -"

"But, these idiots are led by a human - who should know better than to attack us with what amounts to paint guns. Enola would've had a harder time, sure, but not me, and certainly not you."

Another rocket melted the core of the mech. I was going to have to get a new mech in a few seconds. Or find that asshole with the last rocket locker. Either one would be satisfying.

"If they were expecting Enola, then they are even more idiotic than I gave them credit for," I hissed. My fists tightened around their handholds. The metal screeched under my _Strength_ and sheared away entirely. The mech dropped to the ground and I was left holding two jagged shards of metal in my hands. Growling I punted the worthless piece of machinery towards a group of enemies and then reared my arms back and threw both chunks of scrap into the heads of other Blue Suns members.

"Hey, Jane, Enola's fine."

"They _attacked_ my sister," I snapped. "They had an _ambush_ planned for my _sister_. It's not enough that they tried to kill a teenager. No, they had to go and attack my _family_!"

"Jane."

"No one else gets to surrender! They've had their chance. They could have laid down their weapons when we waltzed in and deflected everything they had at once. They made their bed, now they get to lie in it!"

Missy's hand squeezed my shoulder. I spared her one glance and the tired look she had was almost enough to give me pause.

Yet, they had attacked my family. This had been planned for my sister.

I scowled deeper and shook her hand off. Missy just nodded. She stepped to the left and was suddenly directly in front of two mercenaries. Neither lasted long as she cracked their weapons and then punched them backwards just enough that their stumble brought them through a loop of space that twisted directly over a large gap in the floor. From their fading screams, it sounded like it was quite the drop. Good.

For my part, I snatched a rocket out of the air as it came hurtling towards my face, twirling with it in my hand until I had done a complete turn, and let it fly back to its originator. " _Finally_ got you, asshole." Tickling against my side saw me snapping my head to the left. I glared at the five Blue Suns who had lined up on top of a pile of scrap, their stances set as they all emptied their rifles at me. I kicked off the ground and in two jumps I had landed beside them. One fell off the pile, his shield winking out as he slammed to the ground below with a crack.

"Why won't you just die already?!" one of the men - a Turian? - shouted.

"You first." I punched him and he crumpled. A roundhouse kick took out the last three.

Missy stepped out of her space warp next to me as I jumped back down to the ground. "Their leader is up there." She pointed towards a structure in the middle of the large room. "Want a lift? I can sort out the rest of the small fry."

I just jerked my head in acknowledgement.

She pushed me forward a step and we were on top of the fortification. Missy was gone again. It didn't matter. Zaeed Massani was standing in front of me. His hand falling from his ear to clutch a rifle at his side.

"Never mind, Vido. She's right here." He barked a laugh as his eyes raked over me. "Just my fucking luck. Here I was all set for a big score, and in walks The Littlest Hebert instead."

 _Was contracted for Enola_.

Heat roared in my chest as my eyes narrowed to slits. "Was there ever anything that you had against Gillian or was she just a means to an end?"

Zaeed shrugged. "At first she was good bait. Everyone knows how you Heberts are: can't resist a good sob story or someone in trouble. Then the little bitch killed one of my top lieutenants. I figured she'd still be useful bait even if she wasn't the writhing kind."

I started stalking towards him, one slow step at a time. "Who hired you to go after my sister?"

"You don't seriously think I'm going to answer that do you? I'm dead either way. I was dead the moment you showed up on this godforsaken rock."

"You were dead the moment you took the _job_ ," I hissed.

"Probably. But the way I see it, girl, you are all too full of yourselves. How are the rest of us ever supposed to accomplish anything on our own with you lording above us like the Greek Pantheon? No. I built the Blue Suns with my own hands. I built it and it dies with me. If I could've knocked you arrogant bastards down a peg or two in the process all the better. These may not be my preferred methods, but the promised results would've been worth it."

_Believes that his employers can hurt us. Willing to do anything to help them strike even a single blow._

"I should leave you alive for my sister to pick over and tease out your secrets. She's good at that. I just bastardize her work and [Negotiator]'s particular talent."

"You should," he agreed. He raised his gun and laughed. "But we both know you're never going to get me back to her. Let's see if I can't hurt _you_ , girl."

He fired. My instincts screamed at me to _move_. I twisted, contorting my body into a direction that the human torso was not meant to bend. The bullet still clipped my shoulder.

 _ **[Pain]**_ echoed out from that wound. The multiversal layers collapsed around my shoulder, slamming into one, and fire radiated out from the hole. Time sped up as I abandoned my human face and opened up my larger senses.

[Horizon] and [Intuit]'s gazes immediately zeroed in on me. I ignored them, focusing on my shoulder. I flickered my form, trying to shove my [multi-stacked] nature back into it. The foreign substance lodged in me fought back, resisting the [layering]. So I cut it off instead.

I snapped back to [Human] as I closed my [layering], cutting off the section of my shoulder that had been _infected_. That part of me sloughed away, falling to the ground, the pain vanishing with it.

Barely a fraction of a second had passed in real-time. Zaeed was still trying to adjust his aim down towards me as I had twisted away.

A roar escaping my throat, I leaped for him.

He didn't stand a chance.

* * *

Missy knelt down next to me, laying her hand on my back and rubbing small circles as I held the piece of me that used to be my shoulder, staring at it.

"Your Mother is going to kill me," she murmured. "I had one job. Watch out for you, make sure you were okay, keep you company in a mini-Network." She sighed. "Dammit."

"It's eezo."

"What?"

"It's _eezo_ ," I whispered. I poked at the strange element embedded in the discarded piece of flesh. "Except it's like it's been…activated. Charged. It felt like…"

" _[Sting]"_ , [Intuit] and [Horizon] both said in our heads at the same time that Missy and I said it aloud.

I lifted my eyes to meet Missy's. "We need to get back to the ships. Then we need to talk to [Mother]."

Missy nodded.


End file.
